There are times that employees wonder and ask many questions, “Am I at the right company? Am I in the right job? And is this all there is?” These questions are especially agonizing for mid-career professionals who may be searching for fulfillment while juggling demands at home and intense financial pressures to earn. How should you address a mid-career crisis? What actions can you take to improve your professional satisfaction? How can you combat the dullness and tedium of your workaday life? And how can you tell if it’s time to make a drastic change?
Expert Opinion: Mid-career malaise runs deep. It’s much more than just an “episodic moment” of frustration or “a particularly gruesome work project” that depletes you, says Gianpiero Petriglieri, associate professor of organizational behavior at INSEAD. “It’s a protracted feeling of, ‘Am I missing something?’” This type of professional discontent is relatively common in middle age, he says. “Midlife is the time where you lose the illusion of immortality. You know your opportunities aren’t endless, and you realize that time is finite,” he says. Even people who have achieved a great deal of career success aren’t immune to these feelings, says Whitney Johnson, an executive coach and the author of several books including Build an A-Team. “They question: ‘Is this really what I want to be doing?’” She says that while “it’s natural and normal to experience professional restlessness,” you must heed “the call to action.” You need to be “proactive and figure out what to do about it.” Here’s how.
Consider a career change: If these strategies don’t have their desired effect, it could be a sign that you need to make a dramatic move, Johnson says. “When you have a feeling deep in your soul that you need to disrupt yourself,” she says, you mustn’t ignore it. “If you stay checked out in your job, over time, you precipitate your own demise.” While “many people say it’s the money” that keeps them in a soul-destroying job, quite often it’s the presumed “loss of prestige and status” of leaving a known career path, she says. Be honest with yourself about what is keeping you in your current position and whether some risks and experiments might be in order. True, switching careers in midlife is intimidating. But, again, remember the positives of your predicament. “Presumably you’ve got some expertise and you know yourself better — you don’t need approval from others as you did in your twenties,” she says. Use that knowledge to think deeply and carefully about what you want to pursue if it’s not your current career. In these cases, working with a career coach can be helpful, Petriglieri says.