Five things to do before you switch careers (if you’re the cautious type)

I’m not. The cautious type, I mean. I tend to make big decisions without much planning or forethought. But when I started thinking about trying a new career, I decided to do it the grown-up way: I explored. I investigated, interviewed and tested for two years. I’m still mid-switch, so I can’t report an outcome yet. But I can share with you the five things I did before I jumped.

1. Dream big. You’re leaving the work that you trained for, that drove you for years, that paid for your baby’s Pampers and your Subaru Forester. If you’re making the hop to something unfamiliar and unknown, why not make it a giant leap? Me, I’d made my living as a journalist for 16 years. Writing for TV and movies sounded really hard. And fun. And possibly lucrative. If I’m going to toss aside a solid living, why not grab for a big, fat, brass ring?

2. Talk to those who went before you. When I started thinking about maybe possibly trying to explore a potential switch—in other words, at the very beginning—I thought I had just one contact in Hollywood: my husband’s best friend, a successful sitcom producer. He too is a former journalist. But I found more people who’d made a switch, each of whom had a different, edifying story. There was the guy I went to high-school with, a former actor who became a blockbuster film writer, who’s been giving me inside dope on how to deal with my agent. Just last night I had a long phoner with a friend of a friend, a lawyer who co-created his own TV show with Steven Bochco. The lesson here: you know more people than you think you know. And also: in general, if you ask, most people are willing to give a hand to a novice by sharing their own experiences. They’re paying it forward.

3. Tell people what you’re doing. Yep. It’s scary, I know. And embarrassing. We mid-career professionals get to a point where we consider ourselves relatively good at what we do. Trying to do something completely new can be terrifying—only slightly less so than actually admitting it to friends and relatives. But by saying it out loud, it also makes it real. I may look like a total ass in the highly likely event I fail, but I’ll look like an even bigger ass if I don’t try.

4. Study. Hard. I am an inept screenwriter. My characters are weird; my action scenes seem fake; my dialogue reads like English is my third or fourth language. But I am trying to be more ept. I’m taking workshops. I read two or three scripts a week. I’m writing, writing, writing, with the unfounded faith that someday a page will appear on my screen that is not complete crap.

5. Quit. I mean your job. You really do have to. At first I thought I could bang out a few scripts during baby nap times and late nights, like I did my book. But I suck. And I’m trying not to suck. For which I need my full attention, or what of it I can spare between diapers and ailing parents and the voluminous bullshit of managing a life and a family. So when my employer offered me a buyout, I took it as a rare opportunity to pull my old paycheck while trying something new. It’s a bit of a cushion, but it’s also a boot in the butt: there’s no turning back now.

Did you make a career switch? How’d you decide to do it, and why?