Midlife Career Crisis: 3 Proven Tips to Navigate Change and Thrive
What is a midlife career crisis?
A midlife career crisis is a period that often happens around your 40s or 50s, when you begin to feel dissatisfied, restless, or unfulfilled in your professional life. In spite of your success and/or stability, you know you need a change. You start questioning past career choices, struggling with burnout or boredom, and wondering whether there is still time to pursue new opportunities or passions.
The triggers for this can be many; changing personal values, workplace shifts, or the realisation that life’s too short to be dissatisfied or unhappy. This crisis can lead to stress and uncertainty but often also serves as a catalyst for growth and positive change. Pushing you to re-evaluate priorities, acquire new skills, and reinvent your career to move into a more meaningful direction.
Facing a midlife career crisis can feel stressful and very painful. It is a time of feeling lost and confused.
But that pain is actually a good thing - it is your body’s way of telling you that you need to make changes.
Here are three ways to not survive a midlife career crisis, but to end up thriving
Midlife Career Crisis - Don’t Ignore the Signals
Tip 1:
Don’t ignore what your body and instinct are clearly telling you - that changes are needed.
The temptation is to try and push through. To want to go back to how your life was before. So you try to keep going and hope that it is just a phase.
But it never is just just a phase.
The good news is that from pain comes growth.
The difficult part is that often you resist stepping towards that growth or change that you need so badly.
All too often you stay trapped in a state of pain because you refuse to acknowledge that you need to make changes. This can last for years, and it can end up in burnout or depression.
You need to listen to the signals and take a step back and reflect on what is not working.
It might be your boss, the company or the environment.
It might be a lack of motivation.
It might be a lack of fit with your role.
You need to be committed to identifying and exploring options for a more fulfilling role or career.
Here are three questions to consider:
What does your intuition (not your head) tell you about the situation?
Imagine being in a different role in a different environment - what thoughts and feelings come up for you? What does this tell you?
What is stopping you from acknowledging that a change is needed, and that this is not just a phase?
Are you experiencing lack of motivation for work?
You are in Transition during a Midlife Career Crisis
Tip 2):
Accept that you are not the person you were before - and acknowledge you are in a period of transition
It is not enough to just acknowledge that you need to make a change, you also need to understand that one stage of your life is ending and another one is about to begin.
In his fantastic book “Transitions - Making Sense of Life’s Changes”, William Bridges talks about endings and the need to grief the loss of the person we were before. You can’t move forward and start to think about the next stage until this has happened.
It is normal, and healthy, to feel a sense of loss or sadness, about the ending of being the person we were, and of the ending of another stage of our lives. And it is a vital part of the process for being ready to move on.
Here are some questions to help clarify if you are experiencing an ending:
How will you be feeling in 6-12 months’ time if nothing changes?
Can you envision a realistic scenario where your life goes back to how it was and you are feeling fulfilled and happy?
Midlife Re-assessment
Tip 3:
Re-assess who we are right now, and accept you might need time before you are ready to move forward.
Transitions are not as simple as one period of our life ending and another one beginning. There is a vital period in the middle which William Bridges calls “the neutral zone”. This is the no man’s land where we are no longer the person we were, but we are not yet the person we are going to become.
This period can feel very uncomfortable. You can feel stressed and trapped due to financial constraints, or about fears of what a transition might mean or lead to.
The temptation is to want to rush through this stage as quickly as possible to get to the other side. This is understandable - no-one enjoys feeling uncomfortable and in limbo.
But rushing through is usually counter-productive. You can end up making poor choices and end up unhappy and unfulfilled again.
This is a time when ideas and solutions naturally pop-up - if you give yourself the time and space, and listen to and not suppress these signals and spontaneous, unexpected clues.
It is a period of dreaming, experimentation, seeing how our bodies (as well as our minds) react to various options and opportunities.
During this time, it is important to re-assess who you are and what you need and want for the next stage of your life.
The value of Coaching during a Career Crisis
A midlife career crisis is a time when career coaching can be very helpful.
Most of my clients come in feeling lost and confused with low confidence, despite being people that appear successful and happy on the outside. The vast majority come out of the coaching engagement with clarity and renewed hope.
Having a trained and experienced person that is on your side is invaluable, and a very different experience from trying to figure it out yourself or talking to friends. A coach will help you reflect and facilitate the process so you can figure out the answer and the way forward.
Whichever path you take, coaching or going it alone, my advice is to embrace the idea of a midlife transition.
Do this and I am confident you will come out the other side a happier and more energised person.
Want help navigating a midlife career crisis?
Book a free Discovery Call to understand where your feelings of discomfort are coming from and what the road to career change might look like for you.
Author: Tim Storrie
-------------- About the Author: Tim Storrie
I'm an ICF-accredited career coach with an Oxbridge education, an MBA and a corporate background.
Drawing from my own mid-life experience of burnout and transition to a more fulfilling career - I help men over 40 with symptoms of burnout, and who are feeling lost and frustrated, to find a career that excites them by gaining clarity and confidence.
My coaching approach is both nurturing and challenging, and combines a structured, exercise-based approach with a focus on getting to the underlying heart of the matter.
Would you like to understand how career coaching can help you get clarity on a more fulfilling future?
Book a free Discovery Call at: https://www.timstorriecoaching.com/contact-me