Starting Over in My 40s

Why I Had to Do Things Differently

Sometimes a new direction doesn’t arrive because you’ve carefully planned it.

Sometimes it appears when you’re at a point in your life where you know something has to change.

After losing my two dogs and eventually having the idea to start pet sitting, I came across a video that really stayed with me.

It spoke about how sometimes, through pain and difficult experiences, we can have an epiphany that points us towards a completely different direction.

I don’t know whether you believe in signs, timing or simply paying attention when something suddenly feels right.

But that message resonated with me.

I’d already been through a period of enormous change, and now I had this unexpected idea sitting in the back of my mind.

Pet Sitting.

If I was going to start something new, I knew I wanted to do things differently.

Not Getting in My Own Way

One of the first things I realised was that I couldn’t keep allowing fear to make decisions for me.

Putting yourself out there is uncomfortable.

Starting something from scratch is uncomfortable.

Wondering whether people will actually book you is uncomfortable.

But if I was going to build something new, I couldn’t wait until I felt completely confident.

I had to be willing to try.

To put myself out there.

To learn.

To make adjustments when something wasn’t working.

And, perhaps most importantly, to stop getting in my own way.

Learning From My Handmade Business

My handmade jewellery business had taught me a lot.

I loved creating. I still do.

But I had experienced the difficult side of being a small creative business owner too.

I could spend hours designing and making jewellery, purchase materials, research suppliers, pay for event spaces and prepare everything beautifully for a market.

Then I’d turn up and spend the entire day waiting to see whether anyone would buy anything.

Sometimes I did well.

Other times, I barely made enough sales to cover what I’d spent.

And there were occasions when I left an event having made little or nothing at all.

The uncertainty was difficult.

I was putting in the work, but I didn’t always know what I was going to get back from it.

So when I started thinking about pet sitting, I knew there were certain things I wanted to approach differently.

Time Is Money

With pet sitting, I wanted to be clear about what I was offering.

What services would I provide?

How long would each service take?

What would I charge?

What would my boundaries be?

I wanted to know what my time was worth.

With a service-based business, I could establish the price before the work was carried out.

If someone booked a particular service, I knew what I would earn for that time.

That was very different from spending an entire day at a market hoping that enough people would walk past my table and decide to buy something.

Of course, pet sitting comes with its own expenses, responsibilities and uncertainties. It’s still a business, after all.

But I had learned something important from my previous experience:

Hope isn’t a business strategy.

You need a plan.

You need to understand your costs.

You need to value your time.

And you need to be willing to change something when it isn’t working.

Starting Again Doesn’t Mean Starting From Nothing

There is something else I’ve had to learn about starting over.

When you’re approaching 40 - or you’ve already entered your 40s - it’s very easy to look around and feel as though you’re supposed to have everything figured out.

The house.

The career.

The relationship.

The family.

The financial stability.

All the boxes checked.

But life doesn’t work like that for everyone.

People take different paths.

Some people build their careers early. Some change direction later. Some start businesses. Some start again after relationships end, circumstances change or life simply doesn’t turn out the way they expected.

And comparing your life to somebody else’s timeline can make you feel as though you’re somehow behind.

I’ve certainly experienced that feeling.

But I’ve also come to appreciate that my path has been my own.

The experiences I’ve had - including the difficult ones - have taught me things that I wouldn’t have learned by following someone else’s perfectly planned route.

Doing Things Differently

Starting pet sitting wasn’t simply about finding another way to make money.

It was an opportunity to take what I’d learned from my previous experiences and approach something new with a different mindset.

To be more intentional.

To value my time.

To put myself out there.

To stop waiting for everything to be perfect.

And to remain open to changing direction when something isn’t working.

I’m still learning.

I don’t have everything figured out.

I don’t think anyone really does.

But one thing I’m proud of is that I’m not afraid to start again.

I’m not afraid to explore something new when I feel that pull to take a different path.

And perhaps that’s something we don’t talk about enough.

Starting over isn’t necessarily a sign that you’ve failed.

Sometimes it’s a sign that you’ve learned enough to know you want something different.

Life doesn’t always follow the timeline we imagine for ourselves.

And that’s ok.

Sometimes the most important thing isn’t having everything figured out by a certain age.

Sometimes it’s simply having the courage to say:

‘This isn’t working for me anymore. I’m going to try something different.’

And that’s exactly what I decided to do.