How to get over feeling like a crippling failure?

[Maztek]

I have a degree already and have worked in healthcare for over 10 years. I’ve recently decided to quit my nurse degree. I’m just burnt out and honestly don’t want anything to do with healthcare ever again.

Ive accepted a job in sales which I’m good at I know I will enjoy. I just want to work a job, come home and that’s it. And just enjoy my life. But I can help just feeling like a huge failure as I feel like I haven’t achieved a “career”. I’m looking at junior roles in things to work my way up and I’m happy to do so but at 29 I feel like it’s quite late to do this. Financially we’re comfortable, I have a husband and 2 kids.

I just feel like a disappointment.

It's never too late to retrain or change track. People do it all the time at all ages. Life isn't always linear.

Good luck with the new job, I'm sure you'll smash it!

Being happy is the most successful you can be in life.

If you are rich but miserable, or have a sought after job and are miserable, you are not successful.

Awww you're not a failure at all! Sales is great; I work in sales and couldn't see myself doing anything else. It's fun and fulfilling. Good luck in your new job! 💖

Its not ‘failing’ to decide you want to do something different. Don’t be so hard on yourself! You’re still really young, too!

I completely changed careers in my early 30s and started from the bottom again. It was SO worth it. Why be stuck in a job you don’t like at any age?

29 is not remotely too late !

I had a lost decade in my twenties.(illness among other things). Restarted my career at 31 as a junior with a baby under my feet and by 40 had another child and climbed to the top of my career (and worked through a pandemic!). There were some tough years where my social life and leisure time went out of the window so I could prioritise my children and my career (working flexibly) but it was totally doable

My mum didn't even start her career till her mid 40s and she's had 2 successful decades and only now in her mid 60s is she starting to go part time.

I have started a new career in my mid 40s and although I am much more junior than before I am much happier in my work than before. You might find it helpful to read Think Like a Monk by Jay Shetty.

29 is young!!

I could not work in sales in a million years. I would be awful and would hate it. So you are already more successful than me in that field!

I dropped out of a nursing course before it even started! Spent 20 years in sales and loved it; exciting, well paid and, come 6pm, able to switch off until the next day. Why don't you regard sales as a career??

I understand OP!! I left my "career job" at 29 for a whole load of reasons and felt I had to answer a lot of questions and like i threw away my education away . I got a boring enough but stable job and that got me through the new mum years with mat leave etc. When I had more time (I became a SaHM) in my late 30s I retrained to do something I wanted and have a lovely part time job now, couldn't be different from where I began. I upskilled last Yr to degree level aged 45 and feel much more confident.

Surely you would be more of a failure to stick in a job you hate, purely because that was what you chose to study 10 years ago. That would be failing at life as you would be ignoring your needs completely.

Success isn't just about finances. It's about enjoyment, fulfilment, relationships, work life balance. It sounds like you've got a lot going for you.

Can I also just help you reframe this?

We start out career around aged 21 (on average) and we will be working until around 75. That is around 50 years. You are only 1/5 of the way through your working life. It is pretty irrational to feel like you should be peaking at age 29 with such a tiny amount of your working life underway.

Plus, people don't tend to have one career that they choose in their early 20s like we used to in the 20th century. On average people cycle through 5 different careers in the modern era. You are COMPLETELY on track.

Well shoot me now cause I'm a complete waste of space!
Honestly this nonsense that in order to be worthwhile we must have a big career, or climb Everest. Be a decent human, enjoy living your life, have 4 different careers. Be who you want to be and bollocks to what society deems "worthy". I've had loads of different jobs, only one of which I would have ever considered to be a traditional career. Right now I can't work, but I will work again, quite where it will be, or what it will look like I have no idea but I'm refusing to worry about it, provided my net impact on those around me is positive I think that's all that really matters.

You are 29! That is very young OP. Also you’ve had your kids young so that’ll make building a new career easier.

Enjoy the job, give yourself some breathing space, and then have a think. Careershifters can be a good organisation. If I were you’d I’d set myself a goal to be in career I wanted by 35, that’s still young enough and gives you time for some wrong turns.

@Pashazade nail hit right on the head there.

You make and re-make your life every single day. That's how you succeed. And Even when you fail: Fail better, as Samuel Beckett put it. It makes no sense to feel a failure and think 29 is some sort of marker of that. Your sense of yourself as a failure at any moment comes from a dragging feeling and mood but is not a fact.

Perspective is of the moment you are in and changes as you go. When you reach the age of 70 or 80 you will look back and think of the dear gone days of long ago and what a slip of a youngster you were at 29 with all that possibility and future in front of you. And how strange to imagine you were a failure.

Tomorrow is a new day and a new outlook. You are already re-making your life, thus succeeding. Go forward with a spirit of optimism, renewal and trust in yourself. Another quote: Mark one step after another; let us not turn back.

THIS!!

Having a positive outlook isn't about never being unhappy or bad things never happening, but how you frame the event & take steps to deal with it.

I'd look at retraining in a new career as brave and really exciting! You've been given an opportunity to explore a whole new area - enjoy it. Good luck!

I think I have put a lot of pressure on myself due to family views on career. Also I always thought my career would be my happiness but now I’m married and have kids, I realise they are my happiness and I honestly don’t care what I do now as long as I come home to them.

Give you over you brave bold woman you!! You've got the guts to stand up and say "This life isn't for me" and change it. Do you know how many people in your shoes just bimble along into their 50's, 60's and retirement because they're too scared or worried to change path? I'm 44 and I've only ever done one job (healthcare!) and I wish I had your guts. You're nowt but a baby, still plenty of time to get yourself established in a career job, hopefully sales will be it, but if not change again.

What if true success in life is achieving the confidence to do what you've done? Besides, there is success in just 'being'.....it doesn't have to be reaching a pinnacle of achievement. Its the sides of the mountain that sustain the life, not the rocky peak.

One lesson I've tried to give my children is that it's absolutely fine to try something, not like it and move on. It's brave to take that step. No one should regard a career change as failure

I was miserable in my previous role. Ended up having to change course (not through my choice) and it's been the making of me. Wish I'd had the courage to change direction earlier

I started a new career right at the very bottom on minimum wage age 39(mid 40s now), have jumped a few steps up the ladder now and am just about to start my management certification that will get me a payrise of at least 20k and I can relocate anywhere in the country with my company once my teenagers have left home. It’s never too late! Good luck OP