A Change of Course Is Always Possible

Your life is not set in concrete. You can change your mind. Change your direction. Whatever you want to do that takes you closer to reaching your goals. Don’t let anything hold you back from having the life that you want.

In Career Choice

Sometimes people think that because they made a certain career choice that their life is on a course that cannot be altered. They feel that they made a decision and should stick with it.

But you are allowed to have a change of heart. You’re allowed even to have an expensive education under your belt in a field that you no longer have any desire to be in.

It happens. And you don’t know if you’re truly suited for a certain career until you’re actually in it. You may just decide that you want more than what you have in the career that you’re in.

That’s okay, too. Or you may decide that you want to go further in the career that you love but a lack of degree is holding you back. It’s never too late to go back for a higher degree than the one that you have in the field you’re in.

It’s never too late to go back to college and get a degree in a completely different area. Worse than not making a move to redirect your life when you’ve had a change of heart is to stay where you are knowing that it’s not what you really want - knowing it doesn’t fulfill your dreams.

There are people who made the decision not to go to college at all. At that time, it was the best choice for their life and they knew it was the right one. But as time passes, so do desires and you might be someone who regrets not getting a college degree.

Some people will realize they regret not getting a degree and immediately take steps to go in the direction that they want. They’ll head to college either in person or online. You might be someone who feels that desire to do something else but you believe that you’re too old to have a change of heart much less attempt to make a big change like going to college.

The kind of thinking that limits you in any way is the wrong kind of thinking. Remove the mental barriers. You are never too old to change your life. The passing of time is not a deal breaker for chasing dreams.

If you feel that you’re not skilled enough and want to get a college degree, then get one. Maybe you’re in a career right now and you are absolutely miserable. You dread getting up and heading to work.

You might feel as if you have no choice. You do have a choice. The only thing standing in the way of change is you. Get out of your own way. If you need a different college degree to get into the career you know you’re passionate about it then do that.

If you need to go to college for the first time, then do that. It could be that you need to learn a particular trade or skill that has nothing to do with returning to college. There are ways to learn what you need to know to have the life that you want.

You can find a mentor. You can take courses. You can become an apprentice. You can change the course of your career for one that better suits you.

In Relationships

Some people have the belief that when you make a choice about a relationship, you’re stuck with that choice. They may believe that because they’ve poured a lot of time into the relationship, they should stick it out.

Or it could be that they’ve been with someone that all their friends and family love and they stay because they don’t want to disappoint other people. Staying when you feel that the person you’re with is the wrong person for you will leave you with a lot of regret.

Relationships begin and they’re shiny and new. An abundance of feelings can blind you to signs that maybe you’re not all that compatible. If you picked the wrong person to be in a relationship with, you don’t want to stay out of a sense of commitment.

You are allowed to have a change of heart. When something doesn’t work for you, it’s best not to continue to invest in the relationship. Otherwise, you’ll lose even more time than you already have.

Maybe you’re someone who chose to stay single. You wanted to focus on other things in life rather than being in a relationship. You chose to build your career instead. Or it could have been that you saw other relationships and felt that being in one was nothing but trouble.

The passing of time has a way of changing a person’s perspective. You gain knowledge and life experiences that you didn’t have at the time you made your original choice. Now that you view things differently, you choose to leave the life of singlehood behind and get involved with someone.

It’s okay to make a different decision about your relationship status. There are some signs that can help you determine that it’s time to follow a change of heart with a relationship.

There is more bad than good in the relationship. Your emotions are often those of irritation, hurt or anger. You find yourself thinking about the way things used to be. If you’re the one doing all the compromising.

You have to change who you are, what you think or believe or feel in order to accommodate the other person’s beliefs or feelings. It’s not good if you’re in a relationship but staying only because you’re holding out hope that the other person is going to change.

When the other person treats you in a way that’s not in your best interest - such as not supporting your dreams, or not being considerate of your needs, it’s time for a change. If you’re the one carrying the relationship, move on.

You keep trying to find ways to solve conflict. Or to rekindle passion. Or to communicate and the other person doesn’t put any effort into it. They go along simply because you lead the charge.

If a relationship isn’t working for you it doesn’t mean that you can’t improve it. As long as your partner is willing and wants to see change as you do, then you can have what you want from the relationship. Do new things together. Keep communication open. Tell your partner what you need.

Other Life Choices

A change of heart isn’t limited to career choices or relationships. You can have a change of heart toward other choices you’ve made in life as well. Living in a certain area is a big life choice.

It’s not easy to move. It’s stressful and time consuming. Maybe you made a life choice that you were going to live in a certain location. You chose the area because you wanted to live near your family.

Only now you have the desire to be somewhere else. Maybe you chose an area because your friends lived there. Or you moved there because a romantic relationship brought you.

You were fine in the beginning. But now you don’t want to be there. You find yourself dreaming of other places you could go. Maybe you’ve even gone so far as to look up housing options in the area where you’d like to move to.

You feel regret that you are where you are. The same feelings can hit when you do ordinary things like making a major purchase. You might have bought a car that you truly wanted.

You spent weeks researching all the positives about the vehicle. Only now that you have it, you regret buying it. You wish that you could turn back the clock and then you wouldn’t make the same choice.

Or maybe you bought a boat. You pictured yourself heading to the lake or to the beach every weekend. Only it didn’t work out that way. You may be a boat person but not necessarily the type of person that owning a boat works out well for.

It could be that your major purchase was bigger than those. You bought a house or a vacation home. Now you feel stuck with a house that you don’t want. These decisions can impact how you trust yourself to make future decisions.

You’ll hesitate even when good opportunities, ones that can change your life for the better, come along. You’re worried about getting involved in an opportunity that will leave you feeling the way you do after making major purchases that you now regret.

What you have to do is to set aside the negative drawback and look at the good that you have gotten from the decisions that you’ve made. You have to realize that just because you bought a major purchase that you later regretted owning didn’t mean it was the wrong choice at that time.

It only means that you changed your mind. And it doesn’t mean that there’s no way to change it. No purchase is permanent unless you choose for it to be. You can sell the car, the boat or the house.

You’re not stuck with it forever. So when an opportunity for you comes along and you want to do it but you’re still feeling the sting of past choices, remember that if you decide the opportunity doesn’t work for you, you can change that too.

It’s always better to take a chance on something that might work out rather than to let it pass and then have regrets. You can always undo choices. But you can’t always get back the same opportunity.