‘People may call what happens at midlife ‘a crisis’, but it’s not. It’s an unravelling—a time when you feel a desperate pull to live the life you want to live, not the one you’re “supposed” to live. The unravelling is a time when you are challenged by the universe to let go of who you think you are supposed to be and to embrace who you are.’ Brené Brown
I was having a much-needed massage after a long-haul flight to New York.
‘What do you do?’ asked my massage therapist.’
‘Oh, I help people make career choices”, I said from a distant place, ‘mostly around midlife when they want to make more of a difference in their work lives.’
‘Yes’, he mused ‘there’s something about 39. You’ve either resolved your career or you need to make some changes.’
And he was right. The number of men I have seen who are contemplating a midlife career change just shy of their fortieth is not surprising. Women who are contemplating a career change arrive at age 28 with uncanny regularity. This is no coincidence; it is now called the quarter-life crisis.
Conversations start in much the same way; ‘I’m just bored.’ ‘I want to do something else.’ ‘I want to start my own business.’ ‘I’m busy with my MBA, then what? ‘I just feel like I’m wasting time.’ ‘I’m a paediatrician and I don’t want to see another snotty nose’, and a conversation I remember with a psychiatrist who said: ‘I feel like jumping off my own balcony!’
It is not uncommon to hear people talking about a ‘midlife crisis’ like something went wrong. ‘All you need to do is sell your Vespa and get over yourself’ they say. ‘Stop this stuff about needing to make a difference, you have a family to support!’
The actor Keanu Reeves reportedly said: ‘Here comes 40. I’m feeling my age and I’ve ordered the Ferrari. I’m going to get the whole mid-life crisis package.’
You can do that too, if you need to, but midlife is an important period in life where you get to review your career and test the fit between your life and your work.
It is a time of huge growth, but it can also be a dangerous time when you can make impulsive choices then wonder later what you were thinking.
The conversation in New York took me back to my own life around that age. I had a good job with a great organisation, and I had the best life could offer. This was it, or was it?
A few years before, I had done an exercise in a workshop where I drew my ideal job and lifestyle in one picture. My cryptic drawing with small stick figures in the middle of the page showed two big people, two small people, a house with a chimney, a few dogs and many large trees. I could see the many shades of green in a park-like garden with the jewel colours of bougainvillea. I could hear the quietness interrupted only by the sound of birds. I could also see the business I wanted to be running.
But as I considered my current life, with a beautiful Victorian home in an expensive leafy suburb, I realised this was not my picture. I was living in the wrong picture. I realised I didn’t like living here. I loved the work I did, and I worked with wonderful people, but my dream of helping people make better choices in their work lives was not being realised. This was a very good life, but it was not the life, or the work I wanted, now.
- Defining a Crisis
Let’s start by defining a crisis.
The German American psychologist Erik Erikson developed what he called the eight psychosocial stages of human development. Each of these stages presents us with a crisis, a fork in the road where we need to make a choice between what we want and what we believe society expects of us.
A crisis therefore doesn’t mean anything has gone wrong, it’s simply a crossroad that demands our attention and which we need to resolve in one of two ways.
Here are Erikson’s eight stages and the crisis each of them present:
Infancy presents the crisis of Trust vs. Mistrust. We either learn to trust our caregivers and feel safe to explore things, or we see our environment and the people in it as untrustworthy.
Early Childhood presents the crisis of Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt. We either develop the autonomy to explore, to express ourselves and to master new things, or we end up feeling inadequate and fearful of new things.
Preschool presents the crisis of Initiative vs. Guilt. We either develop the initiative to question new things, or we suppress questions to avoid embarrassment and displeasure from other people.
School age presents the crisis of Industry vs. Inferiority. We either experience acceptance from our same-sex peer group and become creative and productive, or we end up feeling inferior.
Adolescence presents the crisis of Identity vs. Role Confusion. We either identify with our peer group, or we feel alienated from them. Along with that, we begin to decide what is right and wrong, and to decide whether to conform to other people’s expectations of us, or to find our own identity independent of what other people will say. This is a time when we experiment with roles and possibilities for our future, which may include religion, relationships and careers, and which can be accompanied by feelings of confusion and depression.
Young Adulthood presents the crisis of Intimacy vs. Isolation. We either find a way to develop intimacy with others or we end up feeling isolated. This is a busy time of discovering the workplace, creating a lifestyle, setting up a home, perhaps committing to relationships and having children.
Midlife (middle adulthood) presents the crisis of Generativity vs. Stagnation. We seek through this crisis to find a fit between our life and work, and to support family and society in general. We have a need at this stage to make a contribution outside of ourselves, or we stagnate by being self-absorbed, focusing only on our own wellbeing and prosperity.
Later adulthood presents the crisis of Ego integrity vs. Despair. We either develop a serenity that comes from an acceptance of life, warts and all, or we become bitter, cynical, dictating and judgmental.
Gail Sheehy has said: ‘The work of adult life is not easy. As in childhood, each step presents not only new tasks of development, but requires a letting go of the techniques that worked before. With each passage some magic must be given up, some cherished illusion of safety and comfortably familiar sense of self must be cast off, to allow for the greater expansion of our distinctiveness.’
Midlife is simply the next step in your journey, except this one is focused on resolving your work life.
- Midlife has a language
The language of a midlife crisis has become familiar to me:
‘I have been successful in my career, but I just want to make more of a difference.’ ‘I want a career that also satisfies my lifestyle, I don’t only want to work!’ ‘I am looking for more purpose in my life and work.’ ‘I need a change, but I’m not sure what it is!’
Lecture halls at Business Schools are filled by mid-lifers. They have energy, intellect and ambition, but are at a place where they want to make some important choices. Some are seeking advancement in their existing organisations. Others are seeking opportunities in different organisations or different parts of the world. Some are contemplating starting their own business. And some want to go off in a completely new direction. Midlife Crisis could be called Midlife Crossroads, a far more positive and realistic description of this time in your life.
Bob Buford, in his book ‘Half Time’ compares life to a soccer game. The first half, he says, is about success, the second half is about significance. Midlife can present us with the first opportunity to consider the second half of the game.
Midlife is an invitation to hear your own voice and to find the work that will carry you through the second half of life.
- Hearing your own voice
When the organisation I was working for engaged in a merger, as senior managers we were considering roles in the new organisation. There would most certainly be some duplication. I was on my way to an interview and stopped to say hello to a great mentor at that time.
‘You look grey!’ said Lidia when I walked in. After pouring me a cup of tea, she took out a blank sheet of paper, picked up a pen and looked at me intently. and in a caring but no-nonsense way, she asked me this simple, but powerful question.
‘Andrew, tell me what you really want!’
When last did someone ask you that? When last did you ask yourself that?
I went for the interview, but by then I knew what I wanted. And it wasn’t another job in a corporation. My own consulting business already had a shape in my head.
Sometimes it’s hard to hear our own voice and it can be difficult to discern which voice is ours and which voice belongs to society, our parents, colleagues, and friends. We take on the values of our community, our culture or the people we grew up with all too easily.
I encourage you to ask yourself what you really want.
- A spiritual awakening
Midlife can be a spiritual awakening. I have been fascinated by decision-making for many years. I read every book I could lay my hands on while working on a thesis that explored career decision-making as a way of driving performance in organisations.
At that time a member of my work team brought me a book on job hunting called What Color is your Parachute by R.N.(Dick) Bolles. While on a business trip and with an evening free in my hotel, I dipped into it, then continued to read through the night.
I had long struggled to connect spirituality with work. I knew intuitively they were connected, but how? This book would resolve it for me. It would help me understand that my spiritual mission was in the workplace where I could make my best contribution. I suddenly saw my work and my spiritual life come together in one place.
I knew then that I had a mission, I had a purpose – not just a job.
- Midlife can be a calamity
Midlife can be a restless time as you contemplate the second half of life. The feeling that you are not accomplishing anything of value can feel overwhelming at this stage. It’s also a time your age starts to show, your biological clock is ticking, and it may be time to lose some weight and join the gym.
Eastern cultures have recognised the need for contemplation at this stage of life. The Chinese had an ancient custom where the son of the ruling elite would spend three years in quiet mourning when a parent died and would suspend his duties in mid-career as he reconsidered a future that would enrich the culture of China. Armstrong has said that even in contemporary Japan, women of 33 and men of 42 years of age are said to have entered a ‘calamity’ year and are advised not to start new business ventures.
Rodin’s famous statue ‘The Thinker’ reflects a man deep in thought and frozen from action. It was reputedly dedicated to Dante who was facing his own midlife transition. Rodin explained: ‘What makes my Thinker think is that he thinks not only with his brain, with his knitted brow, his distended nostrils and compressed lips, but with every muscle of his arms, back, and legs, with his clenched fist and gripping toes.’
The concept of a midlife crisis was created in 1965 by Psychoanalyst Eliot Jacques, who first noticed this tendency towards a crisis in creative men. His paper reported that they either died, like Mozart, Chopin and Van Gogh, or went through powerful transformations in their work lives. Carl Jung went through a depression in his late thirties and emerged at 42 with what he regarded as the primary material for his lifetime work.
The chaos of midlife therefore holds the danger of making impulsive decisions. Rushing out and making rash decisions because you feel uncomfortable and unfulfilled, can create a genuine crisis!
So, before you chuck up your job in a hurry, get divorced, sell up and move house, take whatever package is on offer and buy a franchise for which you are unsuited, or a business in an industry you know nothing about, use the energy that midlife offers to work out what you really want.
By the time I took the plunge to leave corporate life, I had an exit plan. I had no debt, I had 18 months net salary in the bank. We stripped our expenses.; we did things that didn’t cost money; I gave up my company car and bought an old station wagon; I completed studies that prepared me for the work I do now, studying while the children were asleep.
I spent at least two years working on my new business plan and how to execute it. I used up my frequent flyer points to learn from people in this industry in the USA, UK and Germany. I set up an office at home and did some voluntary work to test some of my thinking.
But despite that, does that mean we floated on a financial cloud, and everything worked out as I’d planned? Far from it. I questioned my sanity many times in the years that followed as we squeezed through month-ends with necessary help from our access bond.
You too will need to consider how to weave the next part of your carpet so it can sustain you when you are ready to fly.
- Not everyone will agree with you
Waiting for everyone in your life to applaud you and support your plan may be wishful thinking. What you want may not fit the traditional career journey that others have in mind. There will be voices of reason that will discourage you and voices that will inspire and connect with you at a different level. The challenge is knowing which to follow.
When we considered moving out of town, caring voices with our best interests at heart included ‘Your boys won’t be able to go to your old school.’ ‘You will lose a fortune on your house.’ ‘You’ll spend your life getting to work and back.’ ‘The work you did in Germany won’t necessarily work here.’
They were right on all counts, and more. But it wasn’t right for us. We sold. We moved. And we paid. And we paid again. And I would pay again if that was required.
It’s tough following your mission sometimes. But I have also woken up and wondered what it may have cost my soul to have continued a journey without purpose. Living a life that you hate so that you can live the life you want later, may be the biggest risk of all. You can also stay in a job that robs your soul and die of a heart attack at 42. You can work your entire life to retire, only to die two years later.
I love what Steve Jobs said: ‘Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart’.
- Midlife is a nudge
If you have reached 39 or thereabouts and are questioning the fit between your life and your work, you are right on time. It may simply be a time to confirm you are on the right track, or perhaps its nudging you in a new direction.
If you are considering a significant change, I suggest you read the chapter about carpet weaving before you take any leaps of recklessness. https://www.careerwarriors.co.za/blogs/weaving-your-career-carpet
©Andrew Bramley, Career Warriors® 2023. All rights reserved.