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August 23, 2010 3:44 AM

I am considering a big, strange career move, and I’m wondering if it is a terrible idea masquerading as a wonderful idea. Please share tips and tricks for making large decisions without second-guessing yourself into a tizzy.

I am a nurse. I currently work in a job I adore, in a big city that I am at best ambivalent about. I am single, with a close community of friends who support me and love me, and who I support and love.

I have a LOT of student loans, and I really want to make them go away. I am doing a debt snowball with them, but at my current rate of paying them off, they will be gone in about ten years. It’s important to me to get rid of them ASAP, even though they have fairly low interest rates, because I really hate being in debt. If I stay at my current job in my current city, I will live a pretty spare lifestyle for the next ten years, with small increases in pay, and in ten years I will be done with my loans but still living in this city, and I don’t like the idea of that. I miss trees. I don’t like the ambient stress here. I would love to live somewhere else, somewhere prettier and calmer and easier to get around, where I can someday afford a house with a garden. That is almost completely outside the realm of possibility here.

If I leave my current job and take travel nursing jobs, I can apply the extra money to my loans and have done with them in three years. And I will be able to investigate different places I might like to live at the same time. I have done travel nursing before, and I actually enjoyed it, even though I was fairly lonely. I missed my friends, but I really enjoyed being out of the city -- I felt like I could hear myself think.

This seems like a great idea, right? But I’m having some trouble committing to it, because a) I love my job, and will hate to leave it; b) I love my friends, and will hate to leave them; and c) (and here’s where the irrational crazy comes in) I am in my late thirties and recently single, and I am afraid that if I’m traveling around all the time I’m going to miss my opportunity to settle down with someone and have a baby. I hate that that’s a factor in my decisionmaking, but it is. I know it’s not logical, but it comes up whenever I think of this. I’m not even sure that I want a kid.

So, Mefites: Can you think of any reason why I should not go ahead with this plan? Can you offer any advice on making large decisions without second-guessing yourself silly? I’d love both specific advice on my job situation, and more general advice on not second-guessing yourself so hard you wear a circle in the carpet from pacing.

posted by troublemenot to Human Relations (13 answers total)

Anecdotally, I know a woman who got divorced, became a traveling nurse for a couple of years, and met her husband while traveling and remarried this year. Not sure how to address the baby thing, but there it is.
posted by miss tea at 3:55 AM on August 23, 2010

I always try to approach choices like these as a win-win set of options - to me, when you're going to be getting something good no matter which choice you take, there is no "bad" option, hence no reason to second-guess yourself. Maybe try to focus on the positives of your situation - you have two excellent options in front of you, and either way you're going to have something that makes you happy (either a great job that you love, or at worst case, a way to pay off your loans in a short amount of time, even if you might not love the job as much).

You're in a great position!
posted by ukdanae at 4:30 AM on August 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

The thing about traveling is: it's easy to stop. Always get letters of recommendation from the staff and managers where you work, keep your CV and your certifications up to date and you can still get nursing work anywhere almost immediately.

I'm a traveling nurse with many years experience. I've seen the number and quality of positions drop sharply over the last few years, both in the USA and in Canada. If I didn't have the experience I do, I don't think the money would look all that good.

My best advice is to get solid numbers as to wages and benefits from your traveler rep before making any commitment. The benefits and amenities offered have also decreased sharply, and if I didn't have a contract that says I have to be content with my housing (this contract item is no longer offered by the company I work with), I'd be in the same boat as many of the travelers I've met lately who actually are housed in places where they don't feel safe walking to the bus. YMMV, of course. If I didn't have a contract that specified reimbursement for advanced nursing certifications, it would be difficult to keep some of them up.

I love traveling, but I am all about working my butt off for 3 months at a time, then taking 6 or so months off. There's always work waiting for me when I'm ready (read:broke) to work again.

What's the worst that can happen? You get lonesome and change your mind? You'll find another nursing job. In fact, it may be possible to get a re-hire agreement with your present employer. Many institutions have a personal hiatus policy.
posted by reflecked at 4:35 AM on August 23, 2010

Even if you don't do travel nursing for the full three years, you'll still make good headway on the loans, and have some cool experiences in the process. From experience, it can sometimes be overwhelming to look too far ahead with this sort of thing. I've found it's best to enjoy what you're doing now, get excited (and prepared) for what's next, and not worry about anything after that until it's time.

I've found that the best way to curb all that second-guessing is just to make the commitment, buy the plane ticket etc., and then tell everybody, so I can't chicken out...
posted by clipperton at 4:46 AM on August 23, 2010

is travel nursing as well paid as the ex-Pat tax-free positions in the Gulf states? Or is it the same thing? Here in the UK, one colleague paid off her student loans of £18,000 after an 18 month contract in a private hospital in one of the Gulf states. But the ex-Pat lifestyle isn't for everyone. She said she was getting increasingly ansey as the term was coming up but knew it was worth it to be debt free. YMMV.
posted by Wilder at 5:47 AM on August 23, 2010

Do it.

• You are perfectly situated to do it now, single and free.
• Your nursing certificate won't expire, nurses are always needed.
• If you decide to meet-someone-and-settle... how better to meet someone than when traveling?

Do it, do it, do it. Before it's too late.
posted by rokusan at 5:50 AM on August 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

Nthing the 'do it.' You'll always end up regretting the things you didn't do more than the things you did. Also, I'm not making any predictions, but life has a funny way of making you look silly for saying 'If I do x, I won't be able to do y'.
posted by Mooski at 5:59 AM on August 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

I'm not saying do it or don't do it. But traveling does not close the possibility that you'll meet someone you want to have a baby with. You could say that it opens up more potential for that to happen, because you'll be meeting a lot of people you otherwise wouldn't. Also, do you have to commit to traveling for 3 years? Maybe you could give yourself a year, and then reassess how it's going, how much you miss your city friends & life, how far the debt is paid down, and then decide whether or not to do a second year.
posted by Kangaroo at 6:36 AM on August 23, 2010 [2 favorites]

Seems like you're stuck in a loop. Many times, shaking things up a bit helps to make life clearer & move you closer to your goals. I say take the travel nursing job...at worst you'll make a few bucks (goal 1 check), reduce your loans (goal 2 check), find places to live for later (goal 3 check), enjoy work (goal 4 check). Maybe your lonliness will encourage to meet more people & help you find Mr. Right too.
posted by UltraD at 7:35 AM on August 23, 2010

When in doubt, I always vote for "do the thing" over "don't do the thing." We always regret opportunities not taken more than we regret doing things that turned out to be maybe not the best idea.

I doubt you would look back on this years later and think, "OH WOW WORST DECISION EVER." (At the very least, you'll have paid off your loans and gotten out from under debt.) But I do think if you kept your current job you would daydream about being a travel nurse. This might lead you to resent your current job, and I can think of no worse situation than working a job you resent.

Give it a shot. If it doesn't work out, it's not like prison - you can always leave.
posted by ErikaB at 11:14 AM on August 23, 2010

Have you looked into getting your loan debt forgiven by working in a high-need area?

I think that getting rid of student loan debt as fast as possible is a good thing.
posted by Ideefixe at 11:35 AM on August 23, 2010

I don't know a lot about the medical world or the nursing world. In terms of making the commitment to a big career change...It sounds to me like you've thought this through a lot. You seem very responsible, and that's great. My biggest advice if you decide to make the career move would be to make sure that you do it with the least amount of risk involved. Another words, make sure you have a safety net of money just in case your work as a traveling nurse ends all of a sudden. Also, do your best to leave your current job on good terms. This way, if you need to come back begging for a job, there will be a chance of them rehiring you. In terms of your student loans...while those are definitely not fun...they're certainly not the worst kind of debt to be in. Credit card debt is one thing, but student loans have such low interest rates. While it would be nice to pay your debt off sooner then later, I wouldn't make yourself crazy about it. If you make a career change...do it more for your own personal happiness of living in different cities and leaving the current one your located in. The student loans will be taken care of eventually. As far as meeting someone and having a baby...that's a whole different thing. I think it's definitely hard to meet someone when you move regularly. But moving around also gives you a great opportunity to meet new people. At the end of the day, I think the right person can come along in any situation. And when they do you'll know, and perhaps you'll make another career change when that happens. For now, I'd say that as long as you follow some of the things I said about making your move with little risk...I say go for it. Life's to short to live somewhere you're not happy. I lived in the city for a while and eventually moved to another city that had....well....more trees! And I have never regretted it.
posted by ljs30 at 12:59 PM on August 23, 2010

Have you looked at: http://www.ibrinfo.org/index.php? It is a website created by the Project on Student Debt. There is a government program called income based repayment which keeps your monthly payments as a small percentage of your salary. And as a nurse, you likely work for a non-profit hospital or clinic and would qualify for loan forgiveness after making 120 payments (10 years). Use the calculator and do the math, it might be worth it for you.

In terms of a framework on decision making, I suggest one of the following:

Ben Franklin's technique which he described to a friend, Joseph Priestley in 1772, "In the affair of so much importance to you, wherein you ask my advice, I cannot, for want of sufficient premises, advise you what to determine, but if you please I will tell you how. When these difficult cases occur, they are difficult, chiefly because while we have them under consideration, all the reasons pro and con are not present to mind at the same time: but sometimes one set present themselves, and at other times another, the first being out of sight. Hence the various purposes or inclinations that alternatively prevail, and the uncertainty that perplexes us. To get over this, my way is to divide half a sheet of paper into two columns; I put down under the different heads short hints of different motives, that at different times occur to me, for or against the measure. When I have thus got them all together in one view, I endeavor to estimate their respective weights; and where I find two, one on each side, that seem equal, I strike out the two...And, though the weights or reasons cannot be taken with the precision of algebraic quantities...I have found great advantage from this kind of equation, in what may be called moral or prudential algebra. "

More formally,
1) Define problem
2) Identify your goals (as many as possible)
3) Identify alternatives (Is there another type of job in your city you can take on that would be even better? Would working the night shift give you a higher salary?)
4) Identify costs/benefits of all alternatives
5) Look for the unexpected. What would happen if a family member got sick, could you come home to help care for them? What happens if you want to start a long term relationship with someone but have to continue traveling?
6) Made trade-offs across alternatives

Common sense, but works for me. Good luck!
posted by Bananarama at 4:57 PM on August 24, 2010