Need help changing careers

Has anyone ever changed careers before? I’m in my middle 20’s and I’m really considering a change of career as my current job isn't working out for me.

I'm keen to know if anyone else around the same age as me has been in this type of situation.

Any advice you could offer me would be a massive help! Thanks guys

similar position, would involve me giving up a good salary of 40k a year to retrain but I'm considering it as I'm unhappy in my current role, what do you do and what do you want to do? you only get 1 shot at life.

I changed career in my late twenties. Was able to maintain my old job/business whilst I did which made the transition easier. Being able to do a job where you can charge £30 an hour makes study around family a lot easier, even if it meant sacrificing a lot of evenings and weekends.

It is hard and I won’t lie, you do sometimes feel your age at the end of it. Going through it, you’ll here many more rational reasons to quit than to keep going. But it’s worth it, if you’ve researched it properly.

What are you thinking of?

Has anyone ever changed careers before? I’m in my middle 20’s and I’m really considering a change of career as my current job isn't working out for me.

I'm keen to know if anyone else around the same age as me has been in this type of situation.

Any advice you could offer me would be a massive help! Thanks guys

Hey!

I'm currently going through the same thing but in my 30's.

I'm A podiatrist and absolutely despise it, didn't mind it at first but its just awful now not to mention ruining my health. What do you do now and what would you like to do ? I'm in the same boat as you so would be decent to get your take on things.

Cheers

Thank you for sharing your story.

Have you managed to pinpoint the exact reasons for not liking your chosen career? You mentioned that you "didn't mind it" at first - does this mean there was a time when you genuinely liked it? Perhaps you could try to reflect on the reasons why you chose your current career path in hope of reigniting your love for the profession. It's a natural feeling to get bored of doing the same thing everyday so hopefully it's not just boredom. Are you finding your line of work stressful to the point where you've had enough or do you not feel mentally engaged or challenged enough?

If you could choose any career right now, what would it be?

There are too many problems really.

Patients (in my opinion) are getting much more ill tempered and some just have totally unrealistic expectations of the service. A lot of patients I deal with can literally solve their own medical issues because in their infancy they are minor (an example) I see a lot of patients with diabetes and diabetes causes (in some cases and depending and how well they control it) very dry skin, they are advised on an emollient program (again very simple and all they have to do is apply it once per day) I then see them for their next review and they clearly haven't done it and then just abuse you because you didn't wave your magic wand make it go away :/ said patients can then go on to develop very serious foot complications because their skin has dried out so much (ulcers/loss of digit's/partial amputations) and all this in the 1st instance was totally avoidable. Some patients then try to then drag your name through the mud because of what they have suffered and the system is built in such a way that favors the patient and not the practitioner when things go wrong, a horrific thing to have happen to you if anyone has been through that despite no fault of their own which is why various specific insurances are needed to practice.

All the above is just one of many every day 'typical' examples.

The other side of it is that its just horrifically boring (a lot of it is just routine treatment, shaving callus/cutting nails) Poor equipment and bas estates, rooms not large enough, bad chairs/desks that arent ergonomically suitable, no air conditioning in the increasingly warm and humid summers. Bad management running services and having to deal with the bureaucracy of the NHS. Having to put up with offensive remarks from patients and again a few examples "you lost hair since i last saw you", "Funny to see a man doing your profession", "gosh you must really hate looking at peoples feet all day", "do you dream of feet? I bet you dream about feet don't you" none of this helps and has lead me into some pretty dark places not because I'm sensitive or whatever but hearing these types of comments day in day out is really, really demoralizing to the point where you just dread going in every day and people like to think they are amusing when they just aren't. At all.. The other major draw back is posture damage that literally could have me in tears in pain sometimes (im 6 ft 4, 100 kg's) you are just in awful postions all day long bent over with a scalpel in your hands of with other tools, it also leads to wrist damage, neck damage, back pain etc pretty awful stuff once you start getting into your 30's and you just cant deal with it like you used too.

There's also zero career progression, the buck stops at band 7 and even these jobs are really difficult to get and often want things that just take ages to do i.e. masters - a masters really isn't relevant to our profession unless its in surgery or they want independent prescribing which again is expensive and time consuming and to only do all that to just earn over 40k in my view just isn't worth it. We can already by law dispense anti biotics if needed (although the NHS doesn't allow presumably due to money and just going via the GP) So independent prescribing really would have no use to you whatsoever and a lot of risk just to be a tick in the box for some employer to show your a more well rounded practitioner :/

Sorry to bore the crap out of you with all that! but that's probably a good overview as to why I just cant do it anymore

thanks for your response

There are too many problems really.

Patients (in my opinion) are getting much more ill tempered and some just have totally unrealistic expectations of the service. A lot of patients I deal with can literally solve their own medical issues because in their infancy they are minor (an example) I see a lot of patients with diabetes and diabetes causes (in some cases and depending and how well they control it) very dry skin, they are advised on an emollient program (again very simple and all they have to do is apply it once per day) I then see them for their next review and they clearly haven't done it and then just abuse you because you didn't wave your magic wand make it go away :/ said patients can then go on to develop very serious foot complications because their skin has dried out so much (ulcers/loss of digit's/partial amputations) and all this in the 1st instance was totally avoidable. Some patients then try to then drag your name through the mud because of what they have suffered and the system is built in such a way that favors the patient and not the practitioner when things go wrong, a horrific thing to have happen to you if anyone has been through that despite no fault of their own which is why various specific insurances are needed to practice.

All the above is just one of many every day 'typical' examples.

The other side of it is that its just horrifically boring (a lot of it is just routine treatment, shaving callus/cutting nails) Poor equipment and bas estates, rooms not large enough, bad chairs/desks that arent ergonomically suitable, no air conditioning in the increasingly warm and humid summers. Bad management running services and having to deal with the bureaucracy of the NHS. Having to put up with offensive remarks from patients and again a few examples "you lost hair since i last saw you", "Funny to see a man doing your profession", "gosh you must really hate looking at peoples feet all day", "do you dream of feet? I bet you dream about feet don't you" none of this helps and has lead me into some pretty dark places not because I'm sensitive or whatever but hearing these types of comments day in day out is really, really demoralizing to the point where you just dread going in every day and people like to think they are amusing when they just aren't. At all.. The other major draw back is posture damage that literally could have me in tears in pain sometimes (im 6 ft 4, 100 kg's) you are just in awful postions all day long bent over with a scalpel in your hands of with other tools, it also leads to wrist damage, neck damage, back pain etc pretty awful stuff once you start getting into your 30's and you just cant deal with it like you used too.

There's also zero career progression, the buck stops at band 7 and even these jobs are really difficult to get and often want things that just take ages to do i.e. masters - a masters really isn't relevant to our profession unless its in surgery or they want independent prescribing which again is expensive and time consuming and to only do all that to just earn over 40k in my view just isn't worth it. We can already by law dispense anti biotics if needed (although the NHS doesn't allow presumably due to money and just going via the GP) So independent prescribing really would have no use to you whatsoever and a lot of risk just to be a tick in the box for some employer to show your a more well rounded practitioner :/

Sorry to bore the crap out of you with all that! but that's probably a good overview as to why I just cant do it anymore

thanks for your response

completely agree - a masters(with all the time, energy, and debt) to earn 40k! shocking , you can be on 31k just as a work coach in the Department for work and Pensions.