So you’re stuck in the rat race and want out. The grind, the slog, the never ending hustle – you’re officially over it and are considering a career change. Maybe you have a family member or friend or former coworker who made the jump to become a massage therapist and they love it – and hey, if it worked for them maybe it can work for you too?

Maybe!

But if you’re worried you’ll hate it, keep reading and let’s peel back some big reasons being a massage therapist might not be the path for you.

You will HATE being a massage therapist if:

  • Working with people gives you the ick. Helping them, talking to them, TOUCHING THEM?!?! Put you in a room by yourself with a problem to solve please and thank you, but absolutely none of this “customer service” headache.
  • You think wellness is overrated. All this mindfulness and holistic health stuff is another box of buzzwords right?
  • You prefer to be on auto-pilot while you work. Show up, go through the steps, go home – that’s all you want and all you need.
  • Anatomy isn’t really your thing. Come on, you have been told you give a pretty good shoulder rub and you didn’t need to know any muscles or bones to do that, so what’s up with this idea that massage therapists have to learn so much about the human body? Seems like overkill to you that massage therapist training involves so much health science.
  • You don’t like being a student. You have to go to massage therapy school AND take continuing education classes to maintain your license? Yeah that sounds like being an eternal learner and a lot of work, hard pass.
  • A sedentary lifestyle is your ideal. Having a physically demanding job is fine for some people, but for you the idea of being on your feet all the time and working with your hands sounds exhausting.
  • Helping people is all well and good but you wouldn’t say it’s a huge driver in your life. Right now you’re trying to focus on you and you only have so much to give. A career of giving of yourself to others every day feels like you will eventually become drained, and that’s really what you’re trying to avoid with this whole career change concept.

If this list resonates with you, that’s okay. To thine own self be true is solid advice – being a massage therapist is not the path for everybody. It takes a lot of physical, mental, and emotional energy to be a massage therapist.

And hey, if the rat race is wearing you out there is something you can do: book yourself a massage!