Feeling glum about career choices

[RaspberryB3ret]

I've namechanged but I'm a long time poster

I'm not sure why I'm posting, I think just to rant and see if anyone else ever feels like this.

I think I made the wrong choice in what to do for a career and now I am stuck and can't get out. I was always good at a particular subject at school, went on to do this at university and then a postgrad vocational training course in a specialism using this subject. However the reality of working as what I trained to be is very different to what I had hoped - it is very lonely (I spend a lot of time on my own travelling), there is little interaction with colleagues and I never see colleagues face to face, only clients. The work itself is challenging and I'm often in stressful situations. in short I'm really not enjoying it. I've been working in this field since 2013 so have given it a good go.

The problem is I now have no option of doing anything else. I've thought about teaching but can't afford to do the training and have young children so would be very difficult to juggle both. I tried going into an admin role briefly but this didn't pay well enough and wasn't intellectually stimulating enough. What else can I do?

I just feel so down about it all and feel like I really made the wrong choices. I just want something that pays reasonably well and is close to home.

I know this is very vague but I would really welcome any advice. Thank you

I'm a Careers Advisor for the National Careers Service, you could try speaking to someone on the helpline to get some advice?

Thanks @greenjojocat , I didn't know there was one!

Also, I'm 36 so very late to be starting again

Could you give a bit more detail about what you have done and what you want to?! Very hard to advise without that.

36 is in no way too late to start again! I’m 41 and I’m retraining.

Is there anything that would be connected with your current career? Or do you know what else you would like to do?

@babysharkah I work in health as a therapist, don't want to say which one just in case it's outing! I spend a lot of time travelling between sites, don't see any colleagues on a day to day basis so get very lonely. I find myself dreading work and am unmotivated which isn't fair on anyone.

@Flower777 the obvious choice from what I currently do would be to retrain as a teacher, however I can't do this both for personal and financial reasons (small children and no time!). In an ideal world I would like to work in events management or something similar, or perhaps fundraising. Something still vaguely linked to my subject but from behind the scenes rather than front line if that makes sense? But there's no way I will ever be able to get into that with my work history. Just feeling trapped

@Flower777 what are you retraining as?

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