To Ask What Next?

[BB8sm8]

My youngest child starts school in September & I'm feeling a bit lost. I was very career focused before children & had to give up my job due to circumstance rather than choice really. I enjoy being at home but I struggle with the lack of focus I feel sometimes which has led to me feeling isolated and anxious. I've been away from work now for nearly 7 years & now I'm feeling very lost & wondering what do I do now? What's next? I don't need to work financially but having nothing in my life that isn't child-centred has left me struggling emotionally at times so I am wondering if working at least part time would help me in terms of mental health. However my profession has moved on without me these past 7 years. I don't have a particular calling to re-train as something else & my confidence/self-esteem is pretty low. I wonder if I should carry on as I am or find something else for this next stage in all our lives? Even if I don't know what's next?

What do you want? a career? a job? or just interaction?

I think interaction or a sense of purpose, I feel a real lack of focus or purpose really. My job was very goal driven so I'd work on a project very intensely for months & months & I sort of feel like all that energy or focus has nowhere to go now.

My actual advice is to retrain for your original job, then go back to it.

However, there are a lot of small museums around the country who'd be thrilled to have someone come in and hoover up all the HR/marketing/planning tasks that no-one else is doing which actually make it run seamlessly, and sort out the central paperwork/admin required for the three-yearly Accreditation return.

@OP im in your boat too..tricky isnt it

What are you thinking of doing cityfarmer?

Fostering? They're always looking for good foster parents.

@BB8sm8
I studied a STEM subject at uni. Would like to go back to that.
Or do a masters.

I snooped on LinkedIn, some of my managers or colleagues have moved up several positions on the corporate ladder, 1 is in US, 1 in Canada, the marketplace wasnt just waiting for my return, lol.
However, smaller scale versions of the global company i worked with, were quite far behind the marketleaders, theyre now only just implementing the same stuff we did yearssss ago. Even on the simplest level, theyre only just switching from lotus notes to outlook, or switching blackberries to iphone, or more important business tools like requiring CRM usage. So i don't feel too left at sea.

How about you?