I want to study but it all seems so hard

[Willow]

I've been feeling totally unmotivated and just plain bored with work for a while now. I was hoping that 12 months away on maternity leave would give me a fresh start and a more positive outlook but I've been back about a month now and nothing has changed. I don't want to be doing this for the next 15-20 years.

I have been a legal secretary/PA/paralegal for the last 10 years (working in a variety of those three roles in that time).

I think I want to study but every time I start to look into it I convince myself in about 5 mins flat that it's too hard, I'm not capable of ultimately having a professional career.

I completed my HSC but at the time I was lazy, I didn't want to go to uni, I just wanted to finish school, get a job that paid well and bide my time until the whole marriage and babies thing came along. That's all I ever wanted to do. And until this point, that plan has served me well.

But now it looks like our family is complete earlier than I'd anticipated (I had planned on having more children but fate has had a part to play in that) and the reality that I'm going to be working for quite some time to come is starting to set in.

I have explored a few options - I had this great idea that I'd love to be a Lactation Consultant (and still would love to) but after researching this option quickly came to the conclusion that it's a long and windy road and I might not ever get there. There is no direct course of study. The biggest obstacle was that most LCs have a medical/nursing background and I absolutely do not want to do nursing. I've spent enough time in hospitals to know that.

The other options I keep coming back to are psychology or law.

Law would be the easy option. Like I said, I've worked in a legal setting for 10 years now. I think my employment history would help to secure me a place and I'd have the support of my firm, which would make it easier when it came to things like study leave, practical placements/work experience etc. I just don't know if that's ultimately what I want to do. I would prefer a complete change I think but if this is the most 'do-able' option, then it's wise to at least explore it.

Psychology interests me more but after checking out a few uni websites, I'm scared! I just don't know that I am capable. I'd have to study part time at this stage to work around my work and family commitments and it just seems like it would take forever for me to complete - and that's if I even got in! I just don't know that I've got the grey matter for it.

I have no idea how I'd even go about applying, I think I'd have to do that through UAC (I completed my HSC but did mainly humanities subjects so didn't qualify for a TER - that's what it was called back then, no idea if it's still the same.)

I'm 30 so I don't exactly have time on my side. If I'm going to do this it has to be soon.

How did you choose what you wanted to study? Did you do it for the sake of studying or with an end career path in mind?