The dart hit Montana. So that's where she was going.

After years of corporate monotony as a database specialist in northern Virginia, Marisa VanDyke was ravenous for excitement. Every day was the same: wake up, go to work, eat dinner, go to the gym, go to bed. To prompt destiny, she threw a dart at a map and suddenly had something to look forward to. She told her bosses she was quitting. They didn't understand why she'd give up good pay. It was tough to tell her parents, who were happy with her stability. But VanDyke simply stepped off the first rungs of the corporate ladder.

People start over. It feels right. It feels exhilarating and stupid and like the beginning of something great, moving from one place to another, geographically and psychologically. From enervation to ecstasy. From Virginia to Antarctica, by way of Alaska.

VanDyke, 27, chucked the idea of Montana and instead drove well beyond there — to Cooper Landing, Alaska, to be a waitress. No health insurance, no safety net, nothing. Then a friend tipped her off to a job in Antarctica.

Why not?

She applied. She got it. The woman who had spent her post-college years in a cubicle was now slinging from one planetary pole to the next.

"The first day I got there, the plane lands on an ice runway," says VanDyke. "You get off and look around, and there's nothing for miles. It was negative 80 degrees ... and my first thought was, 'Oh, (bleep).' "

This month, VanDyke returns to Antarctica's McMurdo Station for her third six-month stint as a scheduler in the station's housing department. The Herndon, Va., native gets half of the year off, time she has used to travel across the United States and New Zealand. Her vocabulary is rid of the phrase "PeopleSoft help desk, how can I help you?" She's happy she gave up life as she knew it to find something better, even if the initial step was a plunge.

"I think that not knowing is the best way to do everything," VanDyke says. "There's no point in researching it ahead of time and trying to figure out everything. It's more fun to go and experience it. And now I'm not afraid. I'll go anywhere and do anything. And I will make it work, because what else can you do?"

WHAT'S YOUR DREAM?

It comes down to this: What do you want more of? Less of? These are the first questions life coach Wendy Billie asks clients. What is your life dream, and why is it not your reality? Be sure you're getting at your inner motives.

"People might ask themselves, 'Where do I want to be?' but they leave out the 'why,' " says Billie, who's based here and works part time for Feroce Coaching. "And the 'why' is getting to the purpose behind making decisions."

Once you have your sights set on a change, experts recommend trying a profession or environment before you commit. Do it yourself or do it through a service such as VocationVacations (www.vocationvacations.com), an Oregon-based company that facilitates brief immersion programs.

People can languish for years, fearing change will upset whatever good remains. Quinn suggests asking four questions: What result do I want to create? Am I internally directed as opposed to being compelled to please others? Am I focused on the common good? Am I open to feedback and outside cues?

LEAVING HER FAMILY, U.K.

Five years ago, Sue Skeith called her husband of 29 years from Heathrow Airport to say she was leaving him, her two grown daughters, her best friends and an outwardly perfect life she'd built for herself in the county of Dorset, England. She felt invisible, her marriage had imploded, and the resentment, fear and anger manifested in a one-way ticket to Washington.

On the plane, she was wracked by disbelief and trepidation.

"I felt guilt-ridden that I'd caused so much pain," says Skeith, 57 and now living in Gaithersburg, Md. "I am so close to my daughters. I had been this earth mother, and all the kids used to come over to the house. It was a shock to everybody ..."

Skeith stayed with an old friend, Michael, whom she eventually married, but the shock of starting over in a new country was formidable. She found herself dogged by sadness, ignorant of such elemental things as driving, pumping gas, dealing with money and using the phone. Her husband and neighbors helped her ease into the new lifestyle, and her family back in England began to understand that she was happier because of her choice.

"Looking back, I know that the only way I coped was by taking one day at a time, one step at a time," Skeith says. "I didn't look at the big picture. If I had, I might never have taken that first step."

TAKING THE FIRST STEP

The first step — and continuing to take those steps — is what's important, says Robert Quinn, author of "Deep Change: Discovering the Leader Within" and University of Michigan business professor. "When you go through deep change, it doesn't matter if you're wrong," Quinn says. "It matters that you're moving."

There are times in life where we either make a scary change or continue to die a slow death.

"People will go to great lengths to deny that the external world is changing and needs something else from us," Quinn says. "We will just stay in the pattern we've traditionally succeeded at. If we do that when the world is calling for something else, there's usually a breaking point where we can't function anymore, and then we're forced into some form of that deep change. ...

"There's great exhilaration in the new identity that starts to form, a greater alignment with the environment you're in. You expand your consciousness, your awareness and your capacity. That's always very exhilarating."

There are no official statistics on Starting Over. There is no Federal Bureau of Sayonara.

But the seeds of existential antsiness are apparent when you look at U.S. job satisfaction numbers, which have corroded over the past 20 years. Consider: More than half of Americans across all income brackets are dissatisfied with their jobs today, according to the Conference Board, a business research group. This is up from 39 percent in 1987.

People change careers every three years on average, says Sarah Edwards, a licensed clinical social worker in California who, with her husband, Paul, co-authored "Changing Directions Without Losing Your Way" and "Finding Your Perfect Work."

There's an explanation for this rampant feeling of something's-not-right. In early life, people fall into two paths, Edwards says. We either follow the career route prescribed by our academic experience or we follow the example or guidance of our parents.

"At the time, we're so pleased to have opportunities, so we step into things," she says. "When you're in your 20s, you're very excited about life and you want to get hooked up somewhere. And once you're there, you start saying, 'Wait. ...' As we move on into our 30s or 40s, we start to question. 'How did I get here? Is this where I decided to go?' "

In work, several elements foster contentment, says Jessica Schairer, a clinical psychologist based in Los Angeles: feeling proud of what you're doing, having your co-workers and employers like and respect you, and using your natural talents.

Satisfaction is compromised if any of these are missing, but it may not be cause for a total life change. It's important to question yourself before you leap.

"Sometimes you don't have to change your career; you just have to change your company," Schairer says.