In Pursuit of Happiness

This may change your mind in whether or not you think you're trapped in your current position.


Back in 1978, Joanne Davidow was a frustrated 35-year-old saleswoman in a high-end ladies' clothing boutique. She felt stifled. "If I gave my opinion about the business to the owners, they didn't want to hear from me," she says.

Desperate for a change, she studied for a real estate licensing exam. Today she has 70 agents working for her at Prudential Fox & Roach in Philadelphia, and she racked up $50 million in sales in 2004. "I had no idea whether I would be successful or not," Davidow says. "But on my first day as a real estate agent, I felt like I was home."

Almost half of the U.S. workforce changes careers at least once, according to the Census Bureau. And at any point, roughly half of workers say they are unhappy at work. But the decision to leave a steady job—no matter how soul-crushing—is a difficult one, particularly if a dream position requires new skills or a specialized degree.

Worker bees often fantasize about breaking out of the cubicle to do something more hands-on, says James Borland, a coach with The Five O'Clock Club, a career-counseling network. "Particularly if they've been let go, a lot of people say, 'I'm going to buy a bed-and-breakfast in Vermont.' But they don't realize how hard they would work."

Harnessing momentum for change is admirable, experts say, but they caution career switchers to keep their feet on the ground. Make sure your fantasy job is both economically viable and in line with your personal strengths and values before jumping ship. "Often, when someone wants to go back to school, she is doing it as an escape," says Connecticut-based career coach Julie Jensen. School lovers, she says, may happily apply to academic programs without critically assessing the jobs they will lead to.

But sometimes heading back to school is the only way to make a sharp career turn. Tess Autrey Bosher, 30, gave up a six-figure salary to follow her passion: cooking. While she enjoyed law school, she was unhappy during her three-year stint as a lawyer. She quit the firm to attend the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City, where most students are career changers. She hopes to work in a French restaurant where she's likely to earn just above minimum wage.

Frustrated workers often discover that the seeds of a more fruitful career were planted long ago. Christina Drogaris, 30, held hectic film-production jobs for five years after college. But she had always had a flair for interior design; as a kid she would accompany her mother, an antiques dealer, on furniture-hunting exhibitions. After thoroughly scoping out the field, she decided to attend night classes at Parson's School of Design in New York City. "School was much easier this time around," she says. "I finally knew what I wanted to do, so I couldn't wait to go to class."

Jensen advises people who wish to strike out on their own to make a small move before the big one—by taking on consulting work or a freelance assignment, for example, or by volunteering at a restaurant before enrolling in cooking school. "You need to break it down into small pieces, so it doesn't feel like you have to jump across a deep canyon," says Washington, D.C., coach and psychologist Ellen Ostrow. "Talk to people who have made these kinds of transitions and create a strategy. Unless you are in jail, you are not trapped. You do have options."