Starting over in my 30s. Lost and flailing.
Mid 30s and having to start again due to a serious health condition that led to me losing my public policy job. After 2 years I'm lucky that my health is better (at the moment anyway, hope it continues) and I'm able to think about working again having just been focused on surviving day to day for some time now.
Only thing is, I'm completely lost with what to do, and in a much worse position than where I left off 2 years ago. I've got a massive gap in employment, have lost the ability to do anything physically demanding, but to be honest I do not enjoy doing a desk job. I don't think I'd be able to go back to my old job, nor would I want to really. I feel like I'm nearly back to square one and lost at where to start.
I've never known what I want to do. I'm intelligent and had a lot of interests but not one specific thing I've always wanted to do. I dabbled in higher education but didn't get very far and ended up working in hospitality for too long, before moving into management and eventually pivoting to a government job doing admin and working my way up slightly (not far before my health deteriorated). I think suffering the last two years has changed my brain somewhat but I really can't seem to imagine anything I feel passionate enough about to pursue anymore. I feel like time is running out and am flailing around trying to decide what this chance to change my career path should look like. It doesn't help that I have ADHD and have about 18 different ideas a day of what I could aim for - from doctor to lawyer to artist to PR/marketing to directing to curating to entrepreneur to researcher to ecologist...etc etc. I realise that a lot of these are pie-in-the-sky ideas but I feel like I'm at probably the last point in life I could potentially retrain and really make a go of changing careers. I just don't know how people choose what to do and what is even out there (and what will continue to exist or is about to emerge due to AI). What should I do? Anyone out there successfully pivoted in their 30s, perhaps after a career break? How did you choose what to do next and go about it?
TLDR: What could I do for a career after a long break due to health problems? Mid-30s and willing to start over but how to choose?
Posted Aug 7, 2025, 12:48 AM UTC