Reinvent Your Life
Is Your Day-to-Day Disappointingly Dull? Aim for Something Completely Different.

By Dan Zak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, August 5, 2007

The dart hit Montana. So that's where she was going.

After years of corporate monotony as a database specialist in Northern Virginia, Marisa VanDyke was ravenous for excitement. Every day was the same: wake up, go to work, eat dinner, go to the gym, go to bed. To prompt destiny, she threw a dart at a map and suddenly had something to look forward to. She told her bosses she was quitting. They didn't understand why she'd give up good pay. It was tough to tell her parents, who were happy with her stability. But VanDyke simply stepped off the first rungs of the corporate ladder.

She chucked the idea of Montana and instead drove well beyond there -- to Cooper Landing, Alaska, to be a waitress. No health insurance, no safety net, nothing. Then a friend tipped her off to a job in Antarctica.

Why not?

She applied. She got it. The woman who had spent her post-college years in a cubicle was now slinging from one planetary pole to the next.

"The first day I got there, the plane lands on an ice runway," says VanDyke, 27. "You get off and look around, and there's nothing for miles. It was negative-80 degrees with the windchill, and my first thought was, 'Oh, [bleep].' "

People start over. It feels right. It feels exhilarating and stupid and like the beginning of something great, moving from one place to another, geographically and psychologically. From enervation to ecstasy. From Virginia to Antarctica, by way of Alaska.

Next week, VanDyke returns to Antarctica's McMurdo Station for her third six-month stint as a scheduler in the station's housing department. The Herndon native gets half of the year off, time she has used to travel across the United States and New Zealand. Her vocabulary is rid of the phrase "PeopleSoft help desk, how can I help you?" She's happy she gave up life as she knew it to find something better, even if the initial step was a plunge into the dark void of doubt.

"I think that not knowing is the best way to do everything," VanDyke says. "There's no point in researching it ahead of time and trying to figure out everything. It's more fun to go and experience it. And now I'm not afraid. I'll go anywhere and do anything. And I will make it work, because what else can you do?"

Deep Change

Five years ago, Sue Skeith called her husband of 29 years from Heathrow Airport to say she was leaving him, her two grown daughters, her best friends and an outwardly perfect life she'd built for herself in the county of Dorset, England. She felt invisible, her marriage had imploded, and the resentment, fear and anger she'd sublimated manifested in a one-way ticket to Washington.

On the plane ride, she was wracked by disbelief and trepidation.

"I was tortured because I felt guilt-ridden that I'd caused so much pain," says Skeith, 57 and now living in Gaithersburg. "I am so close to my daughters. I had been this earth mother, and all the kids used to come over to the house. It was a shock to everybody that I could behave in such an out-of-character fashion."

Skeith stayed with an old friend, Michael, whom she eventually married, but the shock of starting over in a new country was formidable. She found herself dogged by sadness, ignorant of such elemental things as driving, pumping gas, dealing with money and using the phone. Her husband and neighbors helped her ease into the new lifestyle, and her family back in England began to understand that she was happier because of her choice, however inexplicable it first seemed.

"Looking back, I know that the only way I coped was by taking one day at a time, one step at a time," Skeith says. "I didn't look at the big picture. If I had, I might never have taken that first step."

The first step -- and continuing to take those steps -- is what's important, says Robert Quinn, author of "Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within" and a business professor at the University of Michigan. "When you go through deep change, it doesn't matter if you're wrong," Quinn says. "It matters that you're moving."

There are times in one's life where we either make a frightening change or continue to die a slow death.

"People will go to great lengths to deny that the external world is changing and needs something else from us," Quinn says. "We will just stay in the pattern we've traditionally succeeded at. If we do that when the world is calling for something else, there's usually a breaking point where we can't function anymore, and then we're forced into some form of that deep change. . . .

"There's great exhilaration in the new identity that starts to form, a greater alignment with the environment you're in. You expand your consciousness, your awareness and your capacity. That's always very exhilarating."

Job (Dis)Satisfaction

There are no official statistics on Starting Over. There is no Federal Bureau of Sayonara.

But the seeds of existential antsiness are apparent when you look at U.S. job satisfaction numbers, which have corroded over the past 20 years. Consider: More than half of Americans across all income brackets are dissatisfied with their jobs today, according to the Conference Board, a business research group. This is up from 39 percent in 1987.

People change careers every three years on average, says Sarah Edwards, a licensed clinical social worker in California who, with her husband, Paul, co-authored "Changing Directions Without Losing Your Way" and "Finding Your Perfect Work."

There's an explanation for this rampant feeling of something's-not-right. In early life, people fall into two paths, Edwards says. We either follow the career route prescribed by our academic experience or we follow the example or guidance of our parents.

"At the time, we're so pleased to have opportunities, so we step into things," she says. "When you're in your 20s, you're very excited about life and you want to get hooked up somewhere. And once you're there, you start saying, 'Wait . . . .' As we move on into our 30s or 40s, we start to question. 'How did I get here? Is this where I decided to go?' People start thinking, 'What am I doing?' "

In work, several elements foster contentment, says Jessica Schairer, a clinical psychologist based in Los Angeles: feeling proud of what you're doing, having your co-workers and employers like and respect you, and using talents that come naturally to you.

Satisfaction is compromised if any of these are missing, but it may not be cause for a total life change. It's important to question yourself before you make the leap.

"Do I need a total change of scene, or do I just need a vacation?" offers Schairer. "Do I need to change my whole entire career, or do I just need to change the company I'm working with? Many times, people think the whole industry they're working in is terrible, but it's not. Sometimes you don't have to change your career; you just have to change your company."

That's what Rockville resident Audrey Schaefer did four months ago. By day, she was vice president of corporate communications at a telecom company in Reston. By night, she was addicted to music, seeing up to six bands a week to slake her thirst for alternative, hip-hop and indie sounds. She called herself "a corporate suit with the musical tastes of a petulant 17-year-old."

So with two children still in school, she walked away from her high-paying job to start from the ground up. Now working from home, she's nurturing Schaefer + Company Communications, her own music marketing firm. She earns in two months what she used to make in two days, but she goes to concerts for work and sees her kids and husband more.

"When you get to the point where it's more frightening to stay and do the same thing over and over again than it is to leap, then that's the time to go," says Schaefer, 47. "Is it scary? Sure. Is it exciting? You bet."

It comes down to this: What do you want more of, and what do you want less of? These are the first questions that life coach Wendy Billie asks clients. What is your life dream, and why is it not your reality? What was happening the last time you felt blissful and things came naturally? These are all good questions to ask, but make sure you're getting at your inner motives.

"People might ask themselves, ' Where do I want to be?' but they leave out the 'why,' " says Billie, who's based in the District and works part time for Feroce Coaching. "And the 'why' is getting to the purpose behind making decisions."

People can languish in unhappy lifestyles for years, fearing change will upset whatever good remains. Quinn suggests asking yourself four distinct questions to put yourself in charge: What result do I want to create? Am I internally directed as opposed to being compelled to please others? Am I focused on the common good? Am I open to feedback and outside cues?

Once you have your sights set on a change, experts recommend trying a profession or environment before you commit to it. Do it yourself or do it through a service such as VocationVacations ( http://www.vocationvacations.com), an Oregon-

based company that facilitates brief immersion programs in more than 75 careers (from a $399 one-day brewmaster experience to a $2,999 two-day run as a Broadway director).

You may find that your theoretical dream job is a nightmare. "Before someone goes off and spends three-quarter of a million dollars on a bed-and-breakfast, it's better to test-drive it," says VocationVacations founder Brian Kurth. "We're a first decent-sized baby step."

Don't worry if you don't have the time or the money to experiment. The first step toward considering a start-over is free: putting it in ink.

"Before that, it's just a dream," Edwards says. "But once you write it down, that's the first step into reality."

Tales of Taking the Plunge

Experts and numbers say only so much. Personal anecdotes are what fuel the allure of Starting Over.

Sometimes it's unavoidable. Yodit Girma started over twice. In 1992, her family moved to the United States from Ethiopia because her mother was a political refugee. She was 18 and waitressed to put herself through beauty school. She eventually joined Dupont Circle's Salon Cielo as a hairstylist and two years ago opened her own place, Salon Revive in the U Street corridor, with a co-worker. She has worked full time at Salon Revive since March.

The move from Ethiopia was complete culture shock, says Girma, 32, but opening her own salon was the biggest decision she'd ever made.

"I was doing well where I was, but I was getting to the point where something had to happen," she says. "There was something better out there. It was a challenge. Risk is just one of those things -- you just have to jump."

Sometimes starting over stems from happenstance. While writing code as a freelance software developer in Portland, Ore., William Foster overheard a barista at a coffee shop talking about a modeling job. Since he had an itch to do something different, he attended her agency's next open call with no portfolio and zero knowledge of the industry. The agency signed him, and in August he moved to New York, where he does catering or computer work when he's not modeling in Milan or Paris.

The magnitude of this change crystallized in his mind last year as he was drinking champagne on a balcony overlooking the Champs-Elysees. The guy who always thought he'd be an engineer was doing the Louis Vuitton show in Paris. He's definitely happy he took the plunge -- he gets to see people and parts of the world that would otherwise be inaccessible -- but there are frustrating parts of the life he has chosen: the tedium of casting calls, the repetition of photo shoots.

"At first I was pretty enthusiastic because I assumed I would have great success, but once the reality set in, pretty much every week I have moments where I think, 'What am I doing?' " says Foster, 27. "I'm trying to not worry about long-term career plans. I hope that by keeping my eyes open and trying new things I'll eventually carve a path for myself."

Chance and luck are ingredients in any great adventure, but sometimes the dive into the unknown, though executed with abandon, is planned with care. In the early '90s, Debra Doherty set her sights on the Baltic States. She took Russian language classes at night, then sold her house in Fairfax, quit her job as a government lawyer, threw her stuff in storage and moved to Lithuania for two years. With the horizon barren of excitement, she did a bit of planning and made her own, just as she had done years before when she moved to England.

"It was exhilarating," says Doherty, 52, who now lives in Bethesda. "I knew I wanted it. It took a lot of effort to get there. The whole idea of taking this time was to reward myself for being a member of the establishment and buckling down and saving money."

Having been back in the States for a decade, Doherty admits to hearing the sirens' call of New Zealand. She has looked into visa requirements and the cost of rental homes. Maybe she'll go to school there. She'll start over again, though it's not about barreling ahead and torching the past; it's about living many lifetimes in one.

"I'm not throwing anything away," Doherty says. "It's like that old saying: 'Wherever you go, there you are.' As much as you try to reinvent yourself, you're still dealing with you. You're building on something. I definitely see all those experiences as building blocks that form the chain of my life."

Read More

More than 150 readers e-mailed us to share their tales of starting over. Click here to read excerpts from four readers' stories, and to share your own.