How to tell if you're in the wrong career (Hint: Fight, Flight, Freeze behaviours)
Let’s face it, some of us just need a new job to reinvigorate our relationship with work.
Others feel a deeper level of dissatisfaction.
We instinctively know that a shiny new office, a different commute, and fresh faces won’t touch the sides of our work dissatisfaction, if we are still doing a similar job…in a similar industry.
Flight - Fight - Freeze. Common reactions to being in the wrong career.
The blame game
Close to the end of my first career, I answered a few head-hunting calls of my own from competitors.
After several great meetings, I went cold on them and couldn’t quite articulate why.
I can now.
I realised the problem wasn’t my company, my boss, my commute, my industry, or the culture.
THE PROBLEM WAS ME…
I simply didn’t want to do the job, that I’d spent 20 years getting really good at, anymore.
I instinctively knew that I’d bring my giant bag of work unhappiness (a weird concoction of boredom, under-challenging work, frustration with them, frustration with me…and the list went on), to any other similar role, in the same industry.
I was ever-so-slowing fading out.
Wearing down.
Losing my mojo.
Off came the blinkers!
That’s when I began to notice things I’d never noticed before. I opened my eyes to my own behaviour and the behaviour of others around me.
Every week of my old head-hunting career, I had the privilege of talking to c50+ midlifers.
Midlifers, who were not as happy as they wanted to be in their work.
Midlifers, who would take my head-hunting call.
I’d also had the privilege of talking to lots of work colleagues, some of whom were not as happy as they wanted to be.
I started noticing behavioural patterns in individuals who were in the wrong career.
Not all of these behaviours were being displayed consciously.
You might recognise some of them in you.
3 types of behaviours that demonstrate you might be in the wrong career:
The Flight Response is just one reaction to being in the wrong career.
Flight:
Asking headhunters to “get me out of here”
Resigning, without a plan
Frequent, unexplained illnesses
Expending a great deal of energy attempting to get signed off on sick leave
Intensive holiday planning (beyond their normal holiday excitement)
Unusual, impulsive behaviour
More sick leave days than ever before
Buying business domain names for future possible businesses
Spending rainy day savings on random business ideas that don’t appear to be well-thought out
Getting annoyed, showing frustration, and being angry, are all wrapped up in the Fight Response to being in the wrong career
Fight:
Applying for lots of jobs that seem very similar to your current job
Applying for any job that is not your current job
Bad-mouthing your current boss far and wide, in an attempt to let other divisions know that they are open to new opportunities
Making sure the world knows that you used to do great work…when things were different
Displaying pissed-offness in almost every work conversation (more than the usual grumpiness associated with people our age!)
Endlessly bad-mouthing work colleagues, bosses, other divisions, your division, the industry, and the list goes on
The freeze response to being in the wrong career, often revolves around self-talk…so it’s harder to notice in others.
Freeze:
Carrying your resignation letter in your laptop bag, and constantly daydreaming of the moment you can hand it in
Waiting until you have a million dollar idea for your future business, while getting less and less effective at your day job
Continually convincing yourself that your current career is “not that bad” – but the thought of doing it for another year (never mind decade!), makes you feel ill
Wishing and hoping that someone will email you with a new job via LinkedIn tomorrow morning
Ignoring Sunday night blues
Ignoring the fact that your role is physically and mentally draining the life out of you
Digging deep to work harder, in the belief that this tough period will end magically with a happy conclusion
Praying for voluntary redundancy to be offered
Later, when I learned more about the psychology of work, I discovered that career change is viewed by the brain as DANGEROUS and it prompts these three types of reactions.
You can transform it into a less fear-filled activity by bringing it to the forefront of your mind. Dealing with it consciously, you might find the idea of changing career, or maybe just redesigning parts of it, ABSOLUTELY EXCITING and FREEING.
How to reduce the Fight-Flight-Freeze reaction, so that you can move forward…
Start by researching individuals who’ve already changed career successfully. This tells your brain that career change is possible…without being eaten by wolves. Here’s a fabulous book to get you started
Chat to or interview more people who have changed careers for the better. This allows the brain to get very comfortable with the idea.
That comfort will then give you the freedom and mental space to begin to build a great Plan B. One that will allow you to do work that you really enjoy, for a very long time
How it feels to have moved beyond Fight, Flight or Freeze
Here are a couple of quotes from midlife professionals who faced up to their natural Flight-Fight-Freeze human reaction to change, and how doing so, freed them, allowing them to do work that they now love.
“It feels great being creative all day. We feel happy, proud and confident in what we have produced and we are having such a lot of fun along the way.” (Kate Gregory, Ex Aerospace & Defence Career to Gin Distiller)
”I love my work now. I learned that I am never going to retire. I’m going to be carried out in a box." (Andy Eaton, International FD to Small Business Owner)
Then what?
If you’d like a partner-in-design who has helped hundreds of midlife professionals design more satisfying and fulfilling work, why not book in for one of my free 30 minute Light at the end of the tunnel conversations?
I guarantee to offer you at least two personalised recommendations, helping you kickstart your career overhaul - whether we work together or not.
Life’s too short to live without joy-at-work.
