When April, age 29, emailed me, “For seven years now, I have been saying I hate my job as a clinical data manager,” but explained that she can’t quit to try something new because she has a one-year-old daughter and is the family breadwinner, I knew straightaway that her problem could hardly be overcome by quiet reflection or spirited flashcards. Or a flippant response from me. So I called an executive and life coach, Deborah Brown-Volkman of Surpass Your Dreams, and laid out the details for her.

Deborah says that people don’t “start over.” Or at least, they shouldn’t. The practical solution is to transition from one field to another by blending the old career with the new. “It’s very hard to say, ‘I’m an executive and I want to be a clown,’” Deborah explains. “It’s too big a leap for most people; they just can’t handle that. So the goal is to take the skills that you have and transition.” This can take a while and can eat up the majority of your nights and weekends, but it’s a way of doing something more in line with your interests without having to jump sans safety net.

• Have you made a career transition from one field to another? Tell your story!

If April wanted to become a writer, for example, she could offer to write articles for publications that deal with her industry—in this case, the clinical-data world—as a start. You might be thinking that isn’t the sexiest thing in the world. And you would be correct. But transitioning involves being incremental and methodical in approach. And for some reason it’s often easier to get a job when you already have a job.

After accumulating some bylines in trade publications, April could try writing for laypeople, translating some of the current issues in the clinical-data field that are relevant to everyday consumers into plain old English. April should be able to leverage her specialized knowledge—by virtue of working at her miserable job for the past few years, she knows so much more about this particular area than, say, a general assignment newspaper reporter ever would. She’s an insider. She’s an expert.. . .

We are all insiders of something, whether it’s a government agency or a restaurant violating a whole host of health codes. So when you’re thinking about transitioning, try to imagine what kind of lines would need to be drawn between what you’re doing now and what you want to be doing. It’s like six degrees of separation; it’s just a matter of identifying the degrees.

• Are you an "insider" at something? Have you ever thought of making it your career?