Career wobbles! If youโve never had a career wobble, are you even normal?
A career wobble is when you start feeling unhappy or dissatisfied with your job or career. ย This can happen quickly, as in virtually overnight, or slowly, over a period of weeks or months. It could be due to external reasons (I hate this place / this manager / this is not my tribe) or internal (Iโm not feeling this career anymore / this adds no value to me or anyone else).ย
Ignore the wobble at your peril! Itโs not going to go away.ย If anything, it will get stronger. And if you stay passive in the face of unhappiness, youโre likely to become negative about everything else in your life too.
Part of what keeps us stuck is that we view a career as a linear ladder of progression, instead of a series of experiences.ย Change navigator April Rinne explains this really well in her recent article, Itโs Time to Rethink Traditional Career Trajectories (hbr.org).ย ย And to read more about viewing your career as an experience, read here.
Our wobbles are likely to look different depending upon the age we are when we hit the wobble.ย Below I unpack what the wobble can look like at different age-stages. I also suggest some smart moves we can make to boost ourselves out of the dip.ย
20โs โ quarter-life crisis
A quarter-life crisis sounds dramatic. It is!
Itโs a crisis that may be experienced in oneโs twenties, involving anxiety over the direction and quality of oneโs life, as per the Collins English Dictionary.ย Clinical psychologist Alex Fowke, as quoted in an article by media body Independent, describes it as โa period of insecurity, doubt and disappointment surrounding your career, relationships and financial situationโ.ย One such pressure includes needing to navigate an increasingly complex professional landscape.ย
The same article quotes a LinkedIn study which found that 72% of young professionals in the UK have experienced a quarter-life crisis, with 57% facing pressure to find a career theyโre passionate about.ย This ranks higher than the pressure of finding a life partner, so itโs serious stuff indeed.
Common stressors that pre-empt this type of crisis can include:
Job-hunting or career planning. |
Living alone for the first time. |
Navigating both personal and professional relationships. |
Making long-term personal or professional decisions. |
The better you understand yourself, the more likely you are to select a career path that fits with your personality and aspirations.ย If youโre experiencing a quarter-life crisis, or if you know some-one who is, encourage them to undergo some personal development. ย By the way, the average age for a quarter life crisis is 26 years and nine months, if youโre wondering.ย
If youโve been in the workplace for a while and are coming to the realisation that youโve picked the wrong career, donโt delay.ย The longer you stay on the same career path, the more difficult it is to break out.ย You may need the help of an experienced and insightful career coach to build a well- thought-out bridge between where you are now, and where you want to go.ย
Mid 30's blues
Our thirties are typically a hectic time.ย So many demands.ย Proving ourselves at work. Aiming for that promotion.ย Trying to balance the demands of work, commuting, relationships, family, running a home, healthy living, fitness, (insert all your other aims and commitments here).ย
If you can survive your thirties, chances are things will get less busy in the following decades. Something to look forward to!
Recent research tells us that Americans in their 30โs find their job less enjoyable or fulfilling than their co-workers aged 50 and over; similarly this age group finds their job more stressful and overwhelming than older workers.ย Women experience less satisfaction with pay and benefits, and more stress, than their male counterparts. Previous research from the Sloan Centre on Aging & Work which gathered data from over 11 000 people in 11 countries had the same findings โ that the most dissatisfied workers are aged between 30 and 39.
UK-based research tells us that Brits typically start hating their jobs in their 30โs, specifically over the age of 35.ย More overtime gets put in (often unpaid), but at the same time career satisfaction drops to an all-time low.
Promotion bottlenecks also play a part at this career-stage. Increased competition for fewer higher-level vacancies means less winners.ย Also, in our thirties weโre usually engaged in continual on-the-job learning, along with increased responsibilities.
That makes for grim reading.ย A key influence on low job satisfaction is thought to be fatigue-related โ trying to juggle too many balls, whilst spending too many hours commuting and at work.ย All this during a time when there are so many competing demands for our attention.ย And when weโre tired, we get overwhelmed easily. Which makes everything seem harder.
Itโs at this stage of our careers that mentors can be of huge benefit to us. Some benefits of having a mentor include skills and knowledge transfer (by quickly tapping into the expertise and insights of some-one highly knowledgeable in your industry or line of work); career path guidance; confidence-building and increased networking opportunities.
Here are some concrete things that can help to survive the mid-thirty blues: |
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Finding a supportive mentor. |
Putting clear boundaries around your personal & family life. |
Acknowledging that you can have it all, but not all at once โ so choose your priorities wisely; and let go of the less important stuff. |
Building self-care into your monthly routine, no matter how short โ right now quality is better than quantity. |
40โs โ Midlife career crisis
Youโve spent the last 15 plus years building your career. Youโve built a wealth of knowledge and skills.ย Youโre comfortable in your work skin.ย So why, then, have you lost passion and fulfilment in your profession?ย
The answer lies, unfortunately, in your age.ย You, along with others in their 40โs, have just hit your most unhappy decade.ย And if you donโt manage this decade well, youโre going to make decisions youโre not going to be proud of. Like the ones you made twenty years ago when you were lacking in both judgment and experience.ย
Hereโs the science behind this emotional ambush:ย
Happiness comes in the shape of a U. Indeed. Dialling back to 2008, two economists found that self-reported life satisfaction is in the shape of a gently curving U, beginning high when weโre young. We hit the bottom of the curve around our mid 40โs, and then the curve starts going up again after age 50.ย Countless studies have done similar research, across different countries, and have had very similar results.ย And some studies pinpoint our most unhappy year at age 47.2.ย
What makes us so unhappy during this decade? There are a multitude of factors, some being the narrowing of options, regret over what we did or didnโt do in the past, feeling that life is repetitive and getting stale etc.ย There may be professional dissatisfaction because our job no longer provides us with the satisfaction it used to, or we feel weโre not progressing as we should, or weโre forming different interests.ย Thereโs often also a feeling of โhas it all been worth it?โ.ย This is the age when we are most likely to do an internal cost versus benefit analysis, and to find that although weโve been successful in some areas, weโve neglected others.ย And now it bothers us.
Doing some healthy introspection can help us gain valuable perspective.ย What do we want to change, and what do we want to accept gracefully?ย
An experienced executive coach can help us gain insight and focus as we navigate this turbulent decade.ย
The good news is that as we age, we get happier!
And if youโre considering entrepreneurship, here are some very interesting statistics from research reported on in the Harvard Business Review: ย the average age of entrepreneurs at the time of their companyโs founding is 42, and the average age of highly successful start-up founders is 45.ย The young techies who get all the headlines are outliers.ย
50โs โ Slaying it
Having a career wobble in your fifties is very enlightening. And it can lead to a great outcome.ย
There are many success stories of late career switches.ย By the time youโre in your fifties, youโre likely to have a very realistic picture of who you are, what you want, and what youโre good at.ย All thatโs needed is the courage to make the change.ย
Mindset is a key issue here. There are two very different perspectives we can adopt in our fifties.
The more conventional one is to think of ourselves as an aging commodity.ย โIโm getting old and stale, things are moving too fast around me, I donโt understand half of what my younger colleagues are excited about, and I wish I could retire but I canโt afford toโ.ย ย
The other script is way more empowering. โIโm at the height of my super-powers. I have a wealth of experience and knowledge which means I find good solutions quicker than most; I donโt have the patience to tolerate nonsense; and Iโm confident enough in myself to make changes to my career to suit the life I wantโ.ย
Letโs be realistic, though. Whereas most countries have legislated against age discrimination, it exists.
Smart companies, however, focus on ongoing learning. They seek agile employees, and donโt assume that age and agility are inexorably linked.ย Age can be just a number. Whatโs important is finding people who have the passion and energy to learn new skills and thrive in changing environments.ย
Consider captains of industry. Theyโve had many years of experience and use this highly effectively to manage complex organisations.ย They donโt hide behind their years โ in fact they acknowledge the key role their years have played in getting them this far.ย
If youโre feeling fifty and stale, itโs time to find some-one positive and supportive to bounce ideas off. Start deciding what youโd rather do with your life.
Do your research.
And then donโt hesitate.ย
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Career wobble
career wobbles