Your career. What would you do differently if you had your time again?

[Allmytimeistickingaway]

Are you happy with how your work life has turned out? Or do you have any disappointments, would you do things differently in some way? I am very much behind in terms of any career. Combination of long term ill health, and poor choices made in panic trying to pay the bills etc.

I've now wrapped up a period of studying. I could go down several different avenues and feeling quite pressured to make good choices now as I don't have time on my side. I'm 35.

Looking for advice or tips how to make the most of my time from now on. Would be very interested to hear how others have navigated - if you have faced setbacks how you dealt with them, or conversely if you had a smooth ride what choices you made that helped.

I’d do a degree in something which is in demand but you can work around family and take anywhere - something like a pharmacist, beautician, accountant etc. I’m in a pretty niche job and I love it, but it’s hard to move and not always as family friendly as I’d like.

OP, for a start I think you could do with hearing some positive words about yourself. We're all rooting for you.

Perhaps you may want to shake off the spirit of comparing yourself to other women, it won't take you anywhere. If they inspire you in some ways, that's great. Bit you are not worse than them, 100% you're not. You are you and you will excel if you listen to good advice, but only follow what you feel is right.

Study finance and go straight into banking. They pay a ridiculous amount for doing bullshit

A career coach did an Ask Me Anything thread. I thought she had some really useful advice. I'll have a look for it..

I'm 41 and I feel the same way. I left school not knowing what I wanted but was pressure into university by parents, picked something I had a mild interest in, couldn't get a job in my field of study. Then bounced around admin jobs, talked my way into a business dev role and haven't flourished as I'd like. It's really not for me being an introvert. But it pays well. I just wish I'd studied something that I knew would give me enough money to retire early - like finance

Where do I start.. Could have had a fantastic career in my chosen job in London, instead went in a completely different direction and went to work in the pub trade in a different area of the country with DH which ended, with us losing everything we'd worked for in the recession. I then went back to my original trade, which, in my part of the country will never be lucrative, or jobs be plenty, now I'm stuck, with not many skills to offer elsewhere, in a job which will never pay more than minimum wage, at an age where employers wouldn't be interested in me anyway, So, no, I feel I didn't make great choices.

I went to university at 17. I now work 2 days a week. Career choice has given me the flexibility to do this (with ok earnings) and child care. Can increase number of days when LO starts school. Lucky and not complaining.

It’s a tricky one because I hate my job. I choose the career (finance) for the money alone. I’ve earned 6 figures since I was mid 20s. But I hate the sector. Aside from the money there is absolutely nothing rewarding about it. If I had my time again I’d like to think I’d do something different. Travel related, perhaps. But a) I have a great life due to the financial benefits of my career. And b) I met my husband at work so if I hadn’t gone into finance, I’d never have met him.

No regrets generally. I've built a career in a field I enjoy which has allowed me interesting work, flexibility, to work 4 days and still make excellent money. I'm starting to get a little bored with it now but my employer is funding a course in STEM which I think I can combine with my existing expertise to make an excellent niche.

When a job makes you miserable, you should definitely quit - albeit not recklessly and preferably with a sensible buffer. But I know I can spot opportunities, think ahead, persuade people to back me and learn new things. I think that's crucial. Everything moves on, you either keep up or you fall behind.

I’m with @TooSadToSay . My highly competitive career choice was excellent for the single life I had planned. I quit on having kids, it was too ambitious to try to have it all. If I had my time again I’d aim a little lower

I agree. I didn’t really think long term, which I suppose isn’t all that unusual when you’re a hungry young graduate. I went into a very glamorous, high rolling industry. Long hours, lots of perks, very exciting for a single twenty something. But utterly incompatible with family life (unless you’re a man with a wife doing everything at home ).

I gave it a good shot and went back after my first baby and did two years on the ‘mummy track’ while all my childless junior team members were promoted above me. Then when I went back after my second child I only lasted a few months and had to quit. It was just impossible to do the kind of work I was doing and manage two nursery and school runs, etc.

So now I am going to start completely retraining in September.

The other mistake I made was I chased the ‘glamour’ and the sexiness of the job. But if I’m brutally honest, the kind of role I was doing never really played to my strengths. It always felt a bit forced and inauthentic. All the way through school and uni I was told I had a particular talent and strength in another area but I chose not to pursue it because I thought it was ‘too boring’.

In hindsight I would say always try and play to your strengths. The new career I’m training for will do that, but I feel like it’s a shame it took me until almost 40 years old to realise it.

I enjoyed my career till I was 30 and the recession hit. Budgets were slashed. Redundancies were widespread. I had to take a job in a related field for a third of my previous salary. By the time they started hiring again I’d been out of the field for five years and I was considered to be too far out of date to be allowed to come back. So if I had my time again? I’d pick a different career that’s recession proof with lots of vacancies.

I wouldn't have volunteered for redundancy in 2017. I'd returned to work after having DS and it all felt a bit much. The reality is I would have overcome the changes and could have still been on a financial par with DH.

I've just retrained in HR but totally at the wrong time because DS1 is about to start school and I can't imagine working full time with both DS's or going back to commuting in to central London. But I've found something I'm really passionate about. Maybe after a term or two of DS1 settling I'll start looking properly.

I should have had psychotherapy at 29 when I was dumped. I had some sort of attachment disorder (co dependency, from childhood CPTSD)
My mother did not allow me to have my own mood, thoughts, opinions, feelings. It was all quite insidious though. I was chivied along. Told what I thought. Dissuaded heartily. Encouraged forcefully.

The damage was done in childhood but I couldn't have seen it until 30 when I had a decade of fear, inadequacy, frustration and loneliness to unravel. There would have been no point going any earlier than 30.

Career wise, I wish I'd just kept sitting the leaving cert until I got 5 honours and then I could have got in to the civil service and worked my way up (a bit) without going to college.

The psychotherapy would have prevented me from having children with an abusive man.

But even if I'd had the psychotherapy and met a decent man, I think I should have stopped at one. I have found parenting hard. I'm a single parent so obviously it's hard but I think I'd have a better relationship with my dd if it were just the two of us.

I wish I'd challenged my mother earlier about my childhood. Now that she is 75 she is just instantly up on the cross professionally wounded if I so much as suggest that her parenting of me wasn't that emotionally supportive.

That sounds like a lot of regrets! I'm happy now. But I know what went wrong.

I should have done a vocational degree. I have a degree in literature and wanted to work in publishing (as did all other literature grads). I'm in the charity sector now and wouldn't call it a career. I wouldn't recommend the charity sector to anyone. Ideally I would edit novels in my little garden office. I'm 34, so even though I'll be working until I'm 70 I don't know what career to try and get into now.

I would ensure that one parent work a Mon - Fri day time pattern, as trying to balance 2 lots of 24 x 7 shifts leads to either a) divorce b) madness or c) stepping away from work for years while they were little.
I chose c) and love love loved my time at home with them but career wise I have never caught up, and will always have a job, which I do enjoy but will never earn us a lot, rather than a career where I could have achieved more. Right choice, wrong decade.

It didn't matter in the long run as I am now self employed, running the family business but I made the mistake of staying too long in a job which if I hadn't have become self employed would have been a problem.
Short version: after 7 years in my first teaching job I moved to another teaching job with senior management responsibilities. Plan: stay 4 years, go for a deputy headship.
Reality: I bloody loved that job so decided to stay another year. Then my dad was diagnosed with a terminal cancer so I stayed another year. Head had a breakdown and made some bad decisions for the school and we went into notice to improve. She retired (pushed out) and a new head came in. And started getting rid of as many experienced staff as he could.
If I was still teaching I would be doing supply.

I would pick a job purely based on earning potential, probably do law or accounting training. It's horrible always worrying about money, and whether your job will survive this recession (my last job didn't survive the last recession).

I would pick a job purely based on earning potential, probably do law or accounting training. It's horrible always worrying about money, and whether your job will survive this recession

A lot of law and accounting jobs stand to be AI-ed out of existence.

I was 45 before I found the job that I wanted

A lot of law and accounting jobs stand to be AI-ed out of existence
Moot point I guess, I didn't and it's too late now. I took it as a "if I knew then what I know now" type scenario.

I would never have become a teacher. Bitterly regret it. Especially now that we’re still branded as lazy.

I should have avoided teaching. Loved it for over a decade but now it's just shit.
Still desperately trying to find one of the nice schools with reasonable workload I hear still exist but rare as rocking horse poo.
Should have done something with urban planning instead.

Unlike many others I don't regret being a teacher but I do regret my choice of subject. I wish instead of following my creative tendancies I had chose mathematics, a science or humanities. These teachers have much better success rates in gaining leadership roles.

As I get older I have become more introverted and as such I find the noise and relentlessness of teaching hard. I would like to try something else but I don't regret it per se.

I don't regret falling into the software development world (analyst, management), as it pays great. But at 44 I have just applied to an MA in psychology as I wanted to when I was 18. No idea where it will take me, but I will have more options for sure :)

I wish I did not spend so much time climbing the greasy pole for a senior well-paid role that was not suited for my personality, simply because I was brainwashed as were my peers into thinking that is the grand prize. I should have left much earlier and built my career in my current but related field which suits me much better and is much less stress.