19 speedy insights from 25+years of career consulting (for those with zero time to waste!)
With Midlife Unstuck, The Fierce Emporium and my programmes for midlifers in organisations, I’m not trying to convince the world of the value of doing work that fits better, feels great, or becomes the best work of their lives.
Instead, I’ve decided to focus my limited months on this earth, helping those who already believe that it’s possible…EVEN IF they possess only a sliver of hope…ESPECIALLY IF they don’t know how to get there…yet.
Here are some hints from my research and 25 years career consulting experience, that impact the success (speed, suitability, enjoyment) of career redesign.
Many of these insights have been gained through painful personal experience.
If you’re considering changing career in your 40s or 50s, these insights will impact the success of your career redesign.
Certain elements underpin every single coaching call, online course, masterclass, or group programme I design.
If you’re considering working with me - have a read. Within one minute, you’ll know whether we’re a good match, or whether I’d annoy the life out of you!
Regrets
Towards the end of our lives, absolutely no one looks back and wishes they’d worked harder.
We don’t have a choice about when we die, but we can bloody well choose how we live!
In the UK, we spend at least 60% of our waking hours working, or travelling, to work. That 60% doesn’t include worrying about work, emailing in the evening, or the annoying notifications that wake you in the middle of the night.
My focus is to make that 60%+, MUCH more valuable than it has been to date.
The right kind of changes in your career after 40 or 50 allow you to invest the 60% of our waking hours at work well. What’s not to love?
Time is too precious to let it drift
The average human lives for around 1000 months.
At 40, you’ve lived 480 of your potential (if-you’re-lucky) months
At 45, you’ve lived 540 of your potential months
At 50, you’ve lived 600 of your potential months
At 55, you’ve lived 660 of your potential months
At 60, you’ve lives 720 of your potential months
All of our lives will be too short to waste doing work that doesn’t fit or feel great.
Are you ready to put some thought into figuring out how you want to spend your remaining months?
Staying stuck is a choice
That can be a very tough pill to swallow...in the beginning.
But, the only way to begin any change, is to admit that we are somewhere we don’t want to be. Sounds simple, but this is excruciatingly difficult for most…
…too hard for some.
Stuck isn’t always painful. For some, it feels cosy and safe. We humans like safety. It’s built into our DNA. But safe isn’t always actually safe, is it?
Blame and victims
Blaming others is not helpful if we want to change, although admittedly, most of us start there.
Once you realise that sticking with the wrong boss, the wrong company, the wrong culture, the wrong people, the wrong work style, you see that you have a choice.
These things we blame, are just a way to keep you stuck in a story where you are the helpless victim…you have the choice.
Alert! Danger! Comfort zone enlarging!
Your brains would prefer you to stay put. They perceive danger anywhere beyond their comfort zone. They make change feel bloody hard...in the beginning. But, you can train your brain to take a small risk, get comfy, and then take another small risk. Until taking those small risks begin to feel safe. Until they feel comfortable.
It doesn’t take long.
But, it does take a certain desire and decent level of effort.
Fortunately, you get to choose if you’re prepared to make the effort.
All my clients find this hard…in the beginning. It’s exciting in the end.
Adolescents define success differently to us.
“Duh!” I hear you say. Yet, sometimes our definition of success gets stuck in our youth. When we were either pleasing our parents, or our peers by moving up the ladder, or rebelling by not, we sometimes forget to encourage our definition of success to grow up.
If you choose to join The Fierce Emporium, you’ll connect with individuals who are prepared to do the work to reveal the limitations of their youthful success definition (most say this exercise is one of the most revealing).
And then to craft a new personalised definition of success - to hell with the Jones!
You did it once, you can do it again
If you worked hard to be successful in one career (even when it didn’t use all your strengths and Superpowers) and you’re prepared to work hard on an even more attractive career, why wouldn’t you be even more successful?
This is especially true if you’ve already designed our own, new (and very grown-up), personal definition of success.
Imagine how it would feel to get paid to do work that comes so naturally, it feels light and energising.
Perfection is cripplingly joyless
The drive for perfection chokes every last bit of fun from your exciting journey. Even though you know this, it holds a strange power over you.
That drive for perfection keeps you stuck. It prevents you from trying something new. From trying anything new. From putting yourself out there…even just a little. From doing something different. From experimenting. From creating a new you.
It prevents you from failing. And from succeeding.
From starting. And from finishing.
From reaching your potential as a human. From doing work that matters.
It’s a very big wall, this wall of perfection. Perfect for hiding behind.
In my programmes, we fight against perfectionism with the psychology of change, mixed with laughter, support, encouragement and experimentation.
Work and our generation
Work and self-esteem for our generation (Generation X) are intertwined, more than for any other generations before us, or since. (My book is called X Change…see what I did there?)
If you agree, then it feels right that we should give ourselves permission to invest some time and effort (and usually some cash) into figuring out how to make work more satisfying and fulfilling.
You need to invest in yourself in the present, if you want to feel great about our work - and by extension - yourself in the future.
Control and freedom are yours for the taking
If you don’t deliberately choose your priorities, they will.
That rarely works out well…for you.
So you need to choose.
No. You get to choose.
What to change. What to keep the same. Who to help you. How they help you. How fast you move. How big those changes are. When to make your first move. When to stop moving.
You get to choose.
You also get to choose to do nothing. And stay exactly where you are. Forever.
Personal invisibility cloaks vs Superpowered capes
Without exception, we each have an entirely unique (and utterly wonderful) combination of strengths, talents, Superpowers and personality traits.
We’ve been cultivating these for at least half of our lives, often since childhood.
We often don’t value our strengths and Superpowers highly enough because they feel so natural and come so easily to us. Sometimes we lose touch with them and they become invisible to us. And only others can see them.
The foundation of building work that matters involves discarding the invisibility cloak that has been hiding our unique combination strengths and Superpowers.
Then the fog of uncertainty starts to lift.
Are you wearing your Superpowered cape or your invisibility cloak?
The personal toxic office
Some environments, people and cultures are toxic for some of us. Yet somehow, others thrive in exactly the same environment. Sometimes the environment we used to love, doesn't love us back anymore.
Sometimes they change. Sometimes we change.
When you acknowledge which environments are toxic for you personally, and understand why they poison you, they become easy to avoid in the future.
In all my programmes, I call this identifying your kryptonite.
Self-kindness - we need LOTS more of this
If only you were kinder to yourself, you’d see the magic that others see.
Read the line above again. Please.
We’re all learning and relearning this one. It might take us a lifetime. But, it’s necessary, if you are to design work that matters more.
Do you still want the gift?
Our first career is a gift to our future self. You simply need to decide whether you truly want to accept it and carry it into your future. ( I know, I know. You’ve invested half of your life in it!)
You now have a tough choice about whether you want to invest the final half of your life in it, or not.
Or, you can reshape it to fit and feel better. A tweak rather than a leap.
You get to choose.
What’s your inner story?
The stories we tell ourselves are just that, stories. In our heads.
When you’re staring down the barrel of a career story that doesn’t look attractive, you have the freedom to begin to write a new story...with a different ending.
It can be scary though, especially when you don’t know how, or where, to start.
But, others do.
Find one you like and ask for their help.
Turning off auto-pilot
No one cares for your career the way you do. But, if you’ve been on auto-pilot for a while, you need a little extra flight-training before you fly solo again.
It doesn’t take take long. But the benefits could last a lifetime.
Choose who is the right person to help you and you’ll be flying in no time.
Here are some hints on how to choose a coach.
Turning off your career auto-pilot switch, can be harder than you think…at first.
Compromising positions
We’re adults, so we totally get that every decision involves a compromise.
But, it’s so much easier if those compromises are known and explored choices, rather than surprises.
Or, someone else’s choice for us.
We need to make conscious and deliberate compromises, if we are to be fulfilled in our work.
Experimentation is where the magic happens
Without learning the skills behind experimentation, you’ll need to take a leap of faith - and I don’t believe in leaps of faiths. They’re too risky for professionals of our age. Risky for our wallets, our egos, our self-esteem.
Instead, I know what works, without the giant fallout, and the crippling fear of failure. It involves designing little experiments, analysing them, and refining them. In fact I’ve discovered that experiments can give your midlife career a kiss of life.
It’s exhausting wearing a mask
Bringing the whole, real you into work, is not nearly as draining as leaving half of you at home, or wearing a mask every day.
Bringing the whole, midlife you into your work is liberating. It’s unapologetic. It’s energising. It’s a refreshing change. And it feels bloody wonderful.
But, you need to get to know the real you intimately, the you at your age. Right now.
Then you can decide…
If you really think you’re too old
If you think it’s too late for you to do much more satisfying and enjoyable work
If now is the absolutely perfect time to step into the driving seat of your future career
Your turn…
What action can you take in the next few minutes to move towards doing work that matters more to you and feels a great deal better?
Ready for action? Book in to speak to me now to see which of my programmes might suit you best.
Find out more about my best value programme to design your next decade of work around you. Work that feels good.
Or if you feel like you’d benefit from more personalised career design help, click here to learn more.
