Some people who make midcareer changes jump right from one profession to another, hoping that their new situation will be more fulfilling than the old one. Others take a scarier approach: They just leave their current jobs -- and then live with the uncertainty as they explore a number of vocations to see what they most desire.

My friend Judith took the latter route three years ago when she left her post as an attorney at a large hospital with no new job in sight. She was 48 years old at the time, had been unhappy at work for several years and was determined "to be happier by the time I turned 50." Highly respected by her bosses and colleagues, she was putting in 70- and 80-hour workweeks -- yet was bored most of the time and "never comfortable in my skin as a lawyer," she says.

But she wasn't sure what she would feel comfortable doing -- and with her grueling work schedule had no time to find out. So she decided that before choosing a new career path, she would take a sabbatical from the workplace. For more than a year before she quit her law job, she squirreled away as much money as she could from her paycheck. She didn't give notice until she had enough savings to pay her bills for six months and was vested in her company's pension plan.

"To some colleagues, my quitting was a bolt out of the blue," she says, "but I had been planning it for more than a year."

First, a Vacation

At first, the time off was a vacation. She took a long-delayed trip to Latin America. Back home, she caught up with old friends, joined a health club, read avidly and went to movies whenever she felt like it. "I was physically and emotionally exhausted from my law job, and just needed to relax," she says.

She also began exploring her interests and how they intersected with the job market. She wrote a book review for her local paper and discovered she was a facile writer; soon she was a regular free-lance reviewer. She volunteered at an international health organization, which does work she deeply values in third-world countries -- and which tapped her legal expertise and fluency in Spanish. Within a few months she was a part-time staff member, joining the group's directors on trips abroad.

That didn't provide enough of an income to sustain her, however. Single and self-supporting, with little retirement savings, she learned during her time off to live on substantially less than her six-figure lawyer's salary. "I learned I didn't need the expensive dinners out, the clothes, the jewelry I had bought to salve my unhappiness as a lawyer," she says. "And I didn't feel deprived."

Still, when her six-month sabbatical stretched into eight months, she accepted her former boss's offer to do legal work on a contract basis. But a few months later, her boss tried to persuade her to work full time as a lawyer again, at a much higher salary than she had earned before she quit. One friend advised her to take the job, grit her teeth and stash away the extra earnings in her retirement fund. She says, however, that her time off had cemented her resolve to "never practice law full time again. I can rely on it, use it when the opportunity comes up, but it is kind of like taking out an old outfit once in awhile. I knew I wouldn't be any happier the second time around."

She soon found another job in health care -- this time as a communications director and writer. She learned to write press releases and position papers and put out a monthly newsletter. She lasted for nearly a year, before deciding again to seek a more challenging job. "I gave up a lot [of money and prestige] when I quit law to find work that makes me happy, so I don't want to compromise anymore," she says. "And I've learned that somehow I can make it."

A Collection of Jobs

She also has learned that "there is no perfect job," she says. That in turn has prompted her to assemble for herself a collection of jobs, consisting of her work as a book reviewer, her part-time work for the international health organization and a "still to be found third piece with more money," she says.

Not everyone, she acknowledges, would feel able or comfortable living with as much career uncertainty as she has in the past three years. "I don't have children to support," she notes, and has been able to live on one-quarter of the income she used to earn. Still, she suggests that others seeking career changes might discover, as she has, that what they truly want "isn't another career, but work they find interesting. I've become reacquainted with the person I was before I was a lawyer, the person who loves to write, travel, go to art galleries."

Others might also find that taking a career leap isn't nearly as frightening as they anticipate. "I've only bolted upright in bed, thinking 'What have I done?' two or three times," she says. "I've been surprised at how rarely I've felt any panic."