Taken the plunge!

So, after much soul-searching, research, asking people and meditating on the question, I have decided what I'm going to train as and have enrolled on the course. And what is it? Life coaching. Despite my misgivings at the California-esque, airy-fairy nature of it, it is what seemed right and what fits my skills the best. It also fits in well with some of my previous qualifications (nice to know I wasn't utterly wasting my time) such as reiki, NLP and Listening Skills. Once I'm qualified, I'm intending to set up my own practice and specialise in low-ish cost coaching for people who really need it, such as new parents, people who've been made redundant, those who want to simplify/downshift their lives. I'm not interested in business or executive coaching - I want to do purely personal coaching helping empower people to take control of their own lives and be happier. I *know* that sounds desperately new age, but I want to do it in a common sense and down-to-earth way. I know it'll take a fair while to build up a practice and will entail some self-promotion, which I'm not good at, but I think I'll enjoy the course (having spent ages researching courses) and also the work. In a few months, I may need willing victims to practise on, ahem, I mean, I'll be offering free, quality, coaching to people to build up my learning hours. I'm cautiously optimistic. It feels right, deep down. That's not to say that it will all just fall into place without any further hard work, but hopefully, I'm on the right track.

Musing again

I'm musing again on future careers. But once again, everything seems to need proper training and that costs money and time - neither of which I'm blessed with in abundance. If only I knew which was the right path to go down, it would be worth making an investment of time and money (well, if we actually had the money to invest that is!). But how do I know which is the right way to go? There's so many things I'm interested in and if only I could do one of them without any further training, I would like a shot. But all of them seem to need training that costs £1000-£1500 which may not be a huge amount in the long run, but is a very large amount to us.
There's several things that I would like to do as a career if I could just get on with them right now and not have to go through a period of a year or two's training. After all, I have to consider the children - they are and will be my first priority for some time to come yet.
There's just too many variables and too many options. I hate to be hemmed in with no choices, but on the other hand I freeze up and can't function in the presence of too much choice. How picky I am! It seems very scary to spend £1500 and a year of my (and the children's) lives on something that I can't be certain will be the fulfilling and interesting career I'm looking for at the end of it all.
It seems that the NCT antenatal teacher is not a option for the moment at least as the training very definitely includes several residential weekends away which is not an option for my family right now. Maybe a few years down the line, but not right now. So that's out. I looked into training as a life coach but that didn't quite seem right either. And also cost at least £1500 and up to £4000 for training (eek!). So that's out too. So, reflexology is another option which I've considered at various points in my life but not ever actually made a firm decision on. Again, it costs about £1500 and would take about a year of going up to central London for Saturdays, or Sundays (about 1 or 2 a month for 9 or 10 months) and only being back for H's bedtime (well, a bit after actually). I'm a bit unsure. In fact, I'm a lot unsure. Maybe I should just stick with the minimum wage online work I'm already doing for a while. After all, until my husband does his course and finds work, we don't know where we are with either time or money and the chances are we won't actually have the money for a reflexology course anyway.
Or maybe there's another job option out there that I haven't considered. Probably. Maybe I'll keep on looking for a while longer. But how will I know when I find the right thing? Should I be expecting some sort of thunderbolt or 'falling in love' type feeling? Or would I wait a lifetime and still not get that? Bearing in mind that I already know where my passion lies and that's in writing. (Which I am also still trying to make a go of.)
Argh, too many options, too many thoughts. If only I had a bottle of cooking sherry, I'd be on that while I cooked tea, but as I haven't, I'd better go and cook tea sober.

Ponderings

I've been reading Finding Your Own North Star by Martha Beck and finding much help and comfort. I've read quite a lot of self-development books and have found a fair proportion of them annoying due to the author adopting a smug and superior tone, but I really like Martha's way of writing. She's funny, and reveals wry stories of how she has failed and achieved in her own life, which make you feel that she's a friend who really understands.
As a result of reading and thinking and thinking some more, I've come up with some thoughts for possible future careers, and one I'm really interested in researching right now is antenatal teaching. The largest organisation that does this seems to be the NCT (National Childbirth Trust). They seem to be an organisation that some people have some issues with, and I must admit that I have never been involved with them having found them, on a short acquaintance some years ago in a different town, a bit snooty. Anyway, I'm thinking about it as I think it might be something I'd enjoy, the only current stumbling block is the training - finding money for it and also the fact that it involves a couple of residential weekends. Both these issues mean it's out of the question right now, but I suppose both could be got around with some planning.
We are now a couple of weeks into our 'experiment' of having no-one in the house with a full-time job and it does seem to be releasing us both to think about what we'd really like to do and how we might go about that. I feel the creativity is flowing in the house much better than it has for months. If only we were independently wealthy and could drift around like this indefinitely, it's so nice having my husband around all the time. The kids are really benefiting too.