Did you change your life - are you now doing something you dreamed of doing - if so how did you do it?

[Worried2222]

I am having to decide between staying in a better paying job where I like my colleagues and it feels very familiar, but I find part of the job very stressful and overwhelming during some periods of the year, and I have no time to develop a skill I need to develop to potentially change careers, and another job which pays less and seems a little depressing but would free up some of my time.

Anyway it’s made me realise that I don’t want to do either job. In an ideal world I would run a glamping business, or become an author, run a bookshop, organise walking holidays etc etc. I’m done with long days in an admin setting, stressful commutes, coming home completely spent…

Except I am not in a position to quit ☹️.

So I was wondering - if you have changed your life and you are now doing something that makes you happy and that you couldn’t have imagined doing or that you dreamed of doing, how did you do it and what do you do 😊?

I am not a journalist - I just need some inspiration!!

Well I did it before I had financial responsibilities.

I'd got a job straight from school at 16. Enjoyed it for a while but was aware all the folk 10 years older than me wanted to leave. After a while I realised I didn't want to do it for the next 40 years, so I resigned and went to get a degree to train for something else.
As I'd worked for over 3 yrs I was deemed independent of my parents so had a basic living allowance, I had savings from the years I had worked, and I worked around my studies to top that up.

Obviously if you have dc, and / or a mortgage or are needing to pay a commercial rent / not able to just pay for a room in a shared house or live with family at a reduced rate, then you would have to save up for longer before hand.

I kind of did, but I wasn’t in a career beforehand and was earning only very slightly above minimum wage. I went back to university and got a degree in the area that I wanted to work in. I’m now in a role that’s related to that and is a stepping stone to where I would like to end up. I worked minimum wage jobs while I was studying. It was a lot of hours to put in but I was focused on it just being 3 years that I needed to get through.

I would actually really love to be an author as well and I’m trying to write in my spare time. I think doing what you can in the time you have available is really all you can do if you’re wanting a big change.