To ask, how do you know what you want to do for a living?

[SilverHairedCat]

I'm on my 2nd career. Fell into this one by default - left my 1st career - the police - due to now-DH being in the Navy and not wanting to do the LDR thing any more and the local force not taking transferees at the time taking them by the hundred now of course.

New job not really hitting the spot. Uses similar skills but I get none of the same job satisfaction. I miss the police, but not the hours or the bullshit that came hand in hand with it. Can explain more if relevant.

I have lots of transferable skills and various experience and qualifications inc a BSc and a recent post-grad NEBOSH in health and safety. In theory I could retrain, and DH would support me as long as some money was coming in somewhere along the way.

Can't afford to do another degree and can't bear the idea of writing another dissertation. Ever.

But I don't know what I want to do. How did you decide on a career path? A second or third career? What changed it for you?

We can't have kids, no we can't "just adopt" so please don't suggest it, it's too painful, and I'm thinking that since I can't have the family I dreamed of, maybe I should suit myself in my career? But how?

I think it’s really hard OP; as you go through life you realise there are so many aspects of a career that makes it suitable or unsuitable - following your interests could mean low pay and few chances to progress, pursuing a high paying career can turn out to have a lot of financial or qualification based barriers. It’s really hard! Have you considered making a proper appointment with a career guidance service? Or making lists of both your interests and desires from a job and seeing what might fit? I’d have thought your previous experience in established careers is quite positive and people seem to successfully career change; the more years behind you and the more qualifications under your belt, the easier it is to enter something new. At this point though you would probably want to find something that you could stick to for a few years?

As for my own experience, I’m in quite a similar predicament with struggling to decide what to do. I’m 24 and have have my children young; that has influenced me to lean more toward financial gain but still has to be balanced with work life balance. I fell into a finance related job at 19 so my route has kind of presented itself; however there are still several reasons why I don’t want a career in finance. So I’m also doing a degree in law and hoping to qualify as a legal executive or even solicitor once the new SQE qualification comes into place and hopefully eliminates some of the barriers that prevent many taking a career in law. And then I just have to hope that it’s the right fit for me!

Have you considered teaching? I don’t know if that’s insensitive since you’ve said you can’t have children, but it might be fulfilling to educate and is fairly well paid, plus due to teacher shortages there is quite a lot of incentive for professionals/graduates to train. Good luck anyway, I know it’s hard to try and find the right job that you’d ideally want to stay and progress in the rest of you life!

I did a uni course I love, went for something that sounded vaguely interesting, tripped sideways into a career that is related but I never thought I would do. I'm in it for life now, if I have anything to do about it, we're perfectly matched.