- Do you feel like you are tired of your current career?
- Do you worry that you don’t want to do your job for another 20 years?
- Do you worry that you may regret it later if you do something about it soon?
Why am I not enjoying my career anymore?
A career is a long time. And it’s getting longer. What we found acceptable before, bores or frustrates us now. We look out the window and ask – is this it?
Research has shown that on average, we will live to be 100 years old. That means we are likely to work for more than 60 years. That changes how we need to think about our career.
The accepted three life stages of study, work, and retirement have become outdated and redundant. The working phase of our lives has been extended with new patterns emerging. Rather than study, work, retire… it could look like, study, work, travel, retrain, new career, freelance, travel, study, retrain, new career, freelance then… semi-retire.
Some (lucky) people found the perfect career early in life that sustains them for many decades. But many people didn’t get this clarity early on or the lifespan of interest in their career has waned. This shows up in the statistics. Only 27% of people are working in the area that their degree subject is in and, on average, people change their careers 5-7 times during their life.
This is because, we either make the wrong decision earlier on or as we live longer, our values and passions change. What we wanted in our early twenties will be very different to what we want in our thirties and forties. In our twenties, we had more external pressures to make a good decision about a job – usually one that brought security and a good salary.
As we grow older, we become clearer about who we really are and what we care about. This creates a gap between the work that we have built our career on compared to what we find meaningful as our passions and values evolve. Sometimes we only wake up to this fact when we are 15-20 years into our career.
Use your long life as an opportunity to find a career you love
Living and working for longer is a great opportunity to find a career that is more meaningful for you. If you didn’t find it the first time round, or the glow of your current career has worn off, you can carve out some time to work out what a more meaningful career looks like for you.
The good news is – you can find a new career that expresses your true essence, uses your strengths and is aligned to your values. You can decide who you want to work with. You can make proactive choices for when and how you work. You’ll be able to transfer many of your skills and experience from your current career so you are not starting from scratch again.
It’s giving you a second chance at a fulfilling career to sustain you for the next 20 years – it’s worth it.
Ok, this looks like something I need to seriously look at… So how do I look at what my options are and make the right decision?
Where can you start?
- Take my Are You Still in the Right Career? Test
- Book a discovery call with me to see if coaching could be a good fit for you
Ok Angela, I feel like I need to take action to take the pressure off at work.
So what can I do next?
How can I best make a decision regarding what to do next?
What are some of the alternative options that I could explore?
How do I cope with managing my workload in the meantime?
Decide what you want to do
If you are looking for immediate one-to-one support, contact me and we can have a chat.
If you are committed to making a change, join one of the My Wisdom programs.