Have you ever changed careers? Did you make a clean break – assuming your new venture would successfully support you? Or were you cautious – being careful to overlap the first just in case your new path couldn’t keep you afloat?
I ask because that’s the dilemma I face as we speak. Those of you who have been here from the beginning know I made the leap from human-helper career to animal-helper career. The human job paid a comfy salary, but the animal plan fills my soul with peace. Unfortunately, peace hasn’t yet paid the bills.
Some career fields require annual continuing education, as well as fees to keep up licensure and certifications. Sometimes it feels like managing it all could be a part-time job in itself. The tricky part enters when both old and new job both require these things. Welcome to the present moment.
I haven’t worked in my original field for 20 months (as you can see, each of those months has been precious, much like counting every month of a new babies life). There is, however, some level of security knowing there is the safety net to go back to if the new venture leaves me on the brink of losing my house. (And yes, it would have to come to that point for me to consider moving backwards, even if it was going to save my butt.)
But to maintain that safety net, it requires paying for and attending 10 hours of continuing education each year, as well as paying for annual state license and certification fee. Even if you can find great deals on courses, it’s a minimum of $400 per year, plus the time away from the new job to do it.
Now double that to maintain the newly achieved credentials for the current endeavor.
Now factor in that starting a new business costs money and takes a lot of time. And that bringing in money doesn’t happen right away. Even without keeping up the old credentials, you’re floating in the negative.
Which circles me back to my initial pondering….. Is it better to gamble on yourself, cutting ties with the past and focusing your time and money solely on what lies ahead? Or, is it better to be careful, cautious and conservative – rationalizing that you are protecting yourself by keeping a foot in both worlds?
Now when it comes to people, keeping an “over-lapper” is frowned upon. If you’re breaking up with one person (or here, old career), it should be a clean break, allowing you to honestly connect with the new person (hello new career). We’re not supposed to keep a person safety-net, even though that would be being cautious. So couldn’t we look at it as equally wise to make that same complete break and only engage with the shiny new career path?
Plus, there’s an extra level of motivation to succeed in a new career (or relationship) when you don’t have a safety-net to fall back on.
Or maybe I’m just trying to find a reason to justify pulling my last foot away away from that first side, since it feels so much more grounded to have both feet on just one side of the line. Straddling multiple worlds can be exhausting.
You know you are moving in the right direction when your anxiety decreases. When Sunday nights no longer equal dread and feeling heavy pressure in your chest. When Monday mornings no longer equal that quicksand feeling of being thrown overboard into the ocean, with your racing heart telling you it will take 5 days of treading and swimming to get your feet back to stable ground.
But 2 days ago, my husband and I were white-boarding our life and goals. Here we are now, here is what we’re working on, here’s where we need to be…… and came to the conclusion that maybe it’s wisest to hope we don’t need a safety-net, but have one in place, just in case.
So yesterday I sat down at the computer to search for some online courses to keep up the continuing education requirement for career BP (Before Peace). I will keep the association nameless since it still is a great career and a needed field, it just no longer matched what my inner-self needed or could emotionally keep up with.
While I was on their website I started noticing my heartbeat. Now don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing to have a heartbeat, meaning you’re still alive and all. But it made me realize that it’s been a long time (hmmm…. 20 months) since it has beat so hard and fast that I have been aware of it. And that heavy chest feeling, oh yeah, I remember you.
I purchased a couple hour-long online courses. After making it through 3 of the 10 hours, I felt like my new animal life was just a distant dream again. I had a sharp pain running from my right eye to my right ear, making my whole head feel tender……. damn you migraine! I thought I ditched you once I jumped over to the other side of the fork in the road.
Maybe it would be easier to choose an in-person conference, where you can pick one topic and bang out 6 hours in one shot. But then it will feel like actually going into work in that old world again. And all people at a conference want to talk about is the field….. I hated that even when I was still immersed in it. And what if I run into people I used to work with, after all, they are all hunting for continuing education hours too. They’ll ask questions about why I left and what am I doing now and how am I doing now and….. my head feels dizzy from the spinning.
I sit here at the computer thinking, I can’t publish what I’m currently writing onto the internet. What will people think? But then I remember this blog started out as “My-Musings” because that is what is was supposed to be. A place where I could semi-anonymously write down what I am thinking, to get it out of my head, and allow my head to stop thinking about it. If I become nervous to do that because now I know some people actually read it, and monitor or alter what I write because of it, then it would no longer be serving its purpose.
If it is to stay authentic, it needs to be what it is….. my-musings….. for good or for bad. There doesn’t always have to be an answer. It doesn’t always have to be witty or insightful. Sometimes what’s spinning around in our noggin is messy.
Who knows, maybe it will help someone else not feel alone for experiencing spinning in their own noggins. Or maybe, writing it down will help me organize the messiness into a plan. Or maybe, sometimes it helps to just be able to say it out loud (well, on paper at least). Either way, we think what we think. The goings-on of our own minds should be a “no judgement” zone. Even if we have pressed “publish”.