Favorite books or resources that helped you navigate the soul-search-y side of a career change?
We are well on our way towards CoastFI, which means by the time I turn 40 in a few years, I will no longer need to save money and I can work and earn just enough to cover our expenses. Depending on what my husband decides to do, I probably just need to earn $90k+ for another 10-15 years, at most.
I'm director-level in ops and analytics in SaaS and I'm just over it. The industry is frustrating, the egos are insufferable, AI is exhausting, and the work is still somehow boring and repetitive.
So now I spend a few hours a day fantasizing about some wild and irresponsible career change, maybe to something where I have to go back to school and I'll probably earn 1/3rd of what I make right now. I don't want to just stay in SaaS and downshift - I definitely could do that, but the tech ick is so strong right now I don't know if I could suffer it.
But my mind is everywhere: library science, agriculture, urban planning, resource management, teaching, etc. I can sense that I'm just fantasizing about something else - very grass is greener.
I'm not so rich that I can just fuck up my life, and in general I don't want to waste time, energy, or resources. I want to be useful, I want to work on something real and impactful, I want to work with humans, and I'm pretty smart and good at what I do. I'm probably burnt out but I'm in therapy and generally well otherwise, so I'm really just looking for career advice. A sabbatical is definitely an option, but then it still means I need something to come back to.
Anyway, I don't want to make a rash decision, but it's put me in a very soul-search-y kind of mode. Any resources - especially books and podcasts - somebody could recommend? Something that helped you navigate a similar decision?