Changing careers at 8 years into a job, is it realistic? (update)

My layoff made me rethink whether to stay in my field. I have been trying to stay organised about it. I have good customer skills and I am comfortable with spreadsheets. How did you start?

Try a small project in the new field before committing. It told me a lot about whether I would enjoy it.

Thanks for writing this out. I went through something close to it 5 months ago, and it got easier once I kept a simple log of every call and form.