Should I change careers?

Changing careers may promise more than different work. It can promise a different account of who you are: someone courageous, useful or finally in the right place. That hope deserves attention, alongside the actual tasks you would be doing.

I would distinguish dissatisfaction with your occupation from dissatisfaction with a particular employer, workload or stage of life. Otherwise you may undertake a very expensive transformation to solve a problem that needed a different manager. The opposite happens too: people make endless small adjustments because admitting they want another life feels disloyal to their earlier selves.

Try encountering the proposed career before making it your rescue story. Talk to people about ordinary days and try a modest piece of the work where possible. Notice whether your interest survives inconvenience.

You can respect the person who chose your present path without requiring yourself to remain that person indefinitely.

A career change is often described as starting again. Yet your patience, judgement, relationships and knowledge do not disappear when your job title changes. Some will travel well; some may need to become less important.

Jing asks you to test the new work. I would also test the surrounding life. Who would carry additional responsibilities while you retrain? Which commitments need renegotiating? A decision can be yours without its consequences being yours alone. Discuss the specific burdens rather than asking others to endorse an inspiring story.

There may be intermediate routes: a related role, a gradual transition or a project that reveals what you need to learn. Taking one does not make the desire less serious.

Nor must the new career be your final destination. The aim can be work that fits your present circumstances and considered interests, with enough openness to discover that you will change again.

We need a changing room for careers. Take in three possibilities and a small wooden token. The attendant says, “The architect is a little tight around the evenings. Would you like to try a different size?”

Unfortunately, professional brochures provide only mirrors that make everything look magnificent. Nobody photographs the veterinarian entering the same invoice three times or the novelist negotiating with a printer that has eaten chapter seven.

Ask to see the reverse of the costume. Look at the seams, the washing instructions and the enormous pocket marked THINGS YOU DID NOT REALISE WERE PART OF THIS JOB. Every occupation has one. Some contain a ladder; others contain twelve committee meetings.

Jang says your old knowledge will travel. Excellent: keep the useful pockets. You are changing clothes, not being confiscated at the border. And never buy an entire future because it looked good on a mannequin.