How to know if you need a career pivot or just a new job
Burnout often blurs the line between hating your specific workplace and needing to abandon your entire profession. When dealing with constant friction, unappreciated heavy lifting, and leadership pressure, it is hard to tell whether moving to a specialized role will fix things or if you need to leave your industry entirely. This uncertainty makes it difficult to plan a change without risking a major drop in pay or stability.
What the numbers show
Counted from the threads quoted below. How we count
- This comes up 164.5× more often in r/projectmanagement than across the site as a whole.
What people tried
Every workaround mentioned in the threads below. We haven’t tested any of them — and nobody here is claiming they worked.
- 1Exploring short-term fractional or contract talent work
- 2Starting a side coaching or consulting business
- 3Taking intentional time off to reset and figure out the next chapter
- 4Considering entirely different fields like accounting, mortgage lending, or insurance
- 5Teaching as an adjunct instructor
- 6Keeping the passion as a hobby or side-business while maintaining a stable primary career
- 7Looking for operations or project management roles in businesses that support the gaming industry rather than direct game development
- 8Building community-focused projects or side ventures related to the passion without fully quitting the day job
In their words
Unedited, grouped by where they were said, most upvoted first within each place, each linked to the thread it came from.
“I’ve been in HR for over a decade, and lately I can’t imagine doing this for another year nonetheless 10.”source ↗
“I’m exhausted by constantly handling difficult situations, supporting everyone else through change, and navigating pressure from leadership.”source ↗
“I can’t tell whether moving into a more specialized role would help or whether I need to leave HR entirely.”source ↗
“I feel all over the place.”source ↗
“What wears me down is doing the heavy lifting for directors and then having my work overlooked. It feels disrespectful to what I bring to the table, and I’m trying to figure out whether I’m done with HR or just done with this environment.”source ↗
“So now I'm in my 40s, finally settled, and wondering if there's a way to bring what I'm good at (organizing chaos, getting people and projects across the finish line) into something I actually care about.”source ↗
“I've yet to be able to make a switch that would pay the bills the same as a multi-million dollar implementation rollout.”source ↗
“No advice, but I am in the same boat... IT technical PM, main job is to put out fires and handle M+A, and I resin print and paint 40k and OPR minis”source ↗
Where this came up
People with this problem also raised
- 2How to change careers after years of training
- 14Is teaching still a realistic option for me?
- 3Should I get an accounting certificate or degree while working?
- 16Switching from audit to tax in accounting
- 35How to handle the financial and identity drop after leaving a career
- 3How to find a career with seasonal downtime