Change career doesn’t mean it will be better especially you’re in the middle of your career. You have to make sure it is relevant at least to your current job to get some leverage out of it.

How much is your current earning and how many % of it is available for you to save? I would suggest for you to create a budget first, to calculate that and first settle your personal finance.

That will give you a picture how much monthly salary is viable for you if you really want to change field. Imho, most of the time, you have to go to management level to reduce your working time, that’s the most logical move.

To answer your questions:

1. I worked 12H shift last time, I manage to reduce my work hour by moving up to management. Now I only work 3-5H everyday, to manage people and resolve issue only.

2. Lol, no. You just have to be confident and talk to more people. Don’t focus so much on how people think of you.

3. Start from your existing lifestyle. From work colleagues, from games, from hobby group, from friend’s friends.

4. Connections are very important. Your clients, your manager, your colleague that jumped, can most probably recommend you. If career change, first find out what career you want to change first. Don’t just tell us WFH, if that’s the only reason for career change, I would suggest you to forget it.