The forgotten middle child of the career happiness family - and the dangers of not noticing
2002. A few Saturdays each month, I'd pop into the psychology section of Dymocks bookshop in central Sydney.
The title that grabbed me one day was "Birth order: How the eldest wants to rule the world and the youngest wants to change it".
The cover photo looked like the ten-year old version of my boyfriend (now husband).
The forgotten middle-child. First born = Happy work. Last born = Unhappy work. What about the middle-child in the career happiness family?
In that book I learned all about the lionized firstborn, who is adored and gifted 100% of their new parent's awe and attention.
And the indulged, pampered last born who is gifted soft-eyed attention and affection from experienced parents who mostly overlook their (often) wayward behaviour.
The one that grabbed me was the forgotten middle child. Who gets shoved into the role of watcher-of-little-ones, the peacemaker who never gets treated to the exclusive attention that the first born and last born regularly receive.
We middle kids (yep I'm one) grow up never expecting the world's attention.
And it struck me recently that there is a forgotten middle child in the career satisfaction family - especially for professionals in their 40s, 50s, 60s.
A light, first introduction to birth order dynamics. By Michael Grose. I adore the cover photo. The middle child didn’t make it into the cover photo - obviously!
Say “Hello” to The Career Satisfaction family
Meet - Happy work.
The first born child equivalent in the Career Satisfaction family is Happy work.
We notice the good days.
We celebrate the wins.
We bounce home from work.
And enjoy time spent at work.
Some psychologists call this state of work happiness "Flourishing".
Meet - Unhappy Work
At the opposite end of the spectrum, the last born member of the Career Satisfaction family is unhappy work.
This presents as high stress.
Long-term stress.
Persistent feelings of failure. Value clashes.
Persistent low-mood. Depression.
Anxiety-inducing work.
Burn out.
Meet - Languishing at work (the forgotten middle child)
Now, let me introduce you to the less noisy, less noticeable, less attention-grabbing middle child of the Career Satisfaction family.
Some psychologists call this child “Languishing”. You may not.
But you know that feeling…
Stuck in the doldrums. Average. Middling. Same-old. So-so.
Pointless and non-plussing work.
Work that makes you feel like your underperforming - so you don’t feel your normal vim and vigour at work.
Blah work.
Did I say average, already?
Why the middle child of career satisfaction (Languishing) is hard to notice
There are three major reasons why we don't notice that we're languishing - in the early days.
We've been trained to notice the extremes.
We keep an eagle-eye out for the biggies…
Burn out. Bullying. Board-room brawls. Bad boss behaviour. Bouts of depression or anxiety. As well as the big moments worth celebrating and milestones of success.
So the middle ground takes longer to get on our radar.
2. We're too busy…being busy.
Do you know any midlifers who have loads of spare time? Me neither?
We’re often too busy to notice our dwindling drive.
We’re often too busy to notice our fading and flagging effervescence around our work.
We’re often too busy to notice our slowly-sagging journey towards a career slump.
3. We're too smart - to expect work to be joyful all the time.
We’re adults, for goodness sake. We anticipate average days and average weeks at work.
Languishing for a few weeks is normal - yeh? Even for a few months is perfectly acceptable if you've just completed a big project, hit a big milestone or if life beyond work is taking your eye off the ball.
But when the shoulder-shruggy, career-slumpy feeling of languishing extends beyond a few months - or years - it's a whole different story.
Indicators that you’re in a state of long-term languishing.
You're likely to be chronically languishing if you've been feeling the following for more than a few months.
Neither feeling well or ill - emotionally-speaking
Constant numbness around your work
Drifting - feeling a lack of forward motion or progress towards something meaningful at work
A persistent feeling that you're going through the motions - that you’re stuck on an endless work-treadmill (See my Tedx talk where I talk about this specifically)
Decreased motivation to succeed at work
Decreased interest in connecting socially with work colleagues
Increased "I don't give a hoot" feelings
Finding it increasingly difficult to focus on tasks that normally either come easily or engage your brain in a positive way
Increased focus on lack of purpose and "What's the point?" questioning around work tasks.
Let’s start with short-term languishing - tactics to help you re-engage.
If you've been languishing for just a couple of weeks or months, often playing around with disrupting your normal patterns of behaviour and thought can help. Here are some starter ideas:
Assess your life-satisfaction - outside your own head.
One way to assess your life-satisfaction is to take the mini-programme Derailed!
In about half an hour and 100 questions, you'll have a good sense of how you are doing in ten areas of life.
And you can decide whether a new work-strategy is necessary or whether there is another area of life that’s hindering your satisfaction at work.
Engage in a creative or physical activity with others
Playing an interactive video game with a friend, doing your favourite exercise with someone, inviting a friend over to bake a loaf of bread or cook dinner together or offering to help a neighbour to do anything physical.
Experimentation
Breaking free from the familiar is key. When your languishing, your familiar decisions and behaviours feel compelling safe and familiar. Becoming aware of the power of small pattern-disrupting activities can really help. Think I’m kidding - try wearing your watch on the “wrong” arm for 15minutes!
Here's how I broke free from languishing - both in my work-life and in my real-life - it's an article filled with pattern-disrupting experiments. Steal as many as you wish.
Perform three acts of kindness in the next 24hours.
They don't need to be big. In fact tiny is perfect. Because they’re more likely to get done.
Tiny actions create momentum - something you've not been feeling for a while. Need some speedy ideas?
Compliment (truthfully) the next person you see in the coffee shop/supermarket - and then ask them one more question. (The gift of attention and curiosity)
Write a positive review of the any good book you've read/podcast you've listened to.
Give a very specific compliment to someone at work about the quality of a specific piece of work.
Write a Whatsapp message to a friend to tell them why you enjoy being their friend.
Offer to pay for the coffee of the person behind you in the queue.
Give a giant smile to the next person you see.
Learn something new
Notice I didn’t say MASTER something new!
Just do one class, a free Youtube lesson (how to draw a stick-man), learn how to play a new video game, make a new recipe, or figure out how to silence all notifications on your phone.
Here's a list of small free classes that one of my amazing clients shared with me - it’s 1000s of free courses offered by prestigious academic institutions all over the world. You’re welcome!
Write two lists
Write down all the activities you used to love to do at work and all the activities you hate doing.
You’ll be surprised how easy one is and how hard the other is.
Long-term languishing - If you've been languishing at work for more than a year…
I see no other way forward than designing a new career strategy.
The tactics listed above will feel too superficial, if you've been languishing at work for longer than a few months. They wont touch the sides if you've been languishing at work for more than a year!
It that’s your situation, it's likely that you'll need to pause, learn how to design a new career strategy and then put that new strategy into action.
Long-term languishing at work is over-come by long-term strategy planning.
Two ideas to help you move from long-term languishing at work to flourishing at work.
If you're looking for a new career strategy - I have two programmes that have been specifically designed to do that for you, and with you.
Become your own life-long career-strategy designer - DIY with group support: The Fierce Emporium
Become your own life-long career-strategy designer - Done-with-you: The Personalised Redesign.
The Career Satisfaction Family
We find the oldest child of the career satisfaction family, Happy work, easy to notice. (BART)
We also find the youngest child of career satisfaction family, Unhappy work, easy to notice. (MAGGIE)
But the middle child of the career satisfaction family, Languishing at work, is harder for us to notice. (LISA) Yet equally important.
If we notice ourselves languishing in the early stages, we can disrupt ourselves into re-engagement.
But if we leave it too long, we need to take time to PAUSE and really figure out what's going on.
We need to give the middle child some attention - lots of attention - while we design a new career strategy.
