A WOMAN’S GUIDE TO A MID-CAREER ITCH
For years it has struck me in conversations with professional girlfriends that something was going on in terms of how mid-career women feel about their work lives.
Most weren’t as fulfilled as they used to be, were losing motivation with ambition waning, and longed to do work with more meaning. Others seemed to have been hiking along an arduous path thinking they were summiting and reaching their destination only to find they were at a dead end at cliff’s edge—nowhere left to go. Still others pursued entrepreneurial avenues knowing they couldn’t do the kind of work they desired or find the kind of flexibility they required within traditional organizations, while others found themselves forced out of such organizations so now were carving a new path on their own.
A 2017 study by Egon Zehnder, a Switzerland-based executive talent and strategy firm, confirmed this phenomenon looking across countries including the U.S., finding that a smaller percentage of women over 50 wanted to advance to senior management positions compared to the 18-24 age demographic.
These women had less ambition to lean further in, with Egon Zehnder hypothesizing that it was because these women were too aware of the effort and trade-offs involved to reach senior levels or that their optimism had waned, knowing there were too many barriers to get there. The same year The New York Times confirmed these insights with an article about women not making it to the CEO ranks suggesting that the reason was often based on isolation in the C-suite, women’s temperament not being consistent with the competitive nature required to get to the top rung, and continued bias against women in senior level roles. The data continues to support these lagging trends of women’s progression to top leadership roles despite earning more degrees, resting at 5 to 20 percent across industries and politics.
With such barriers and given the mid-point period in one’s life, is it any wonder that women could be disillusioned?
We know that people generally hit a bump in the road around mid-life, and women are no exception. Jonathan Rauch wrote about the “Happiness U-Curve” in The Atlantic, articulating how it is universal for people—women and men—to go into a happiness dip in their 40’s. A general malaise can set in, and not surprisingly this can impact how one feels about her career. Many women at this stage have been in the workforce for 20 or more years, have lived with the social pressure to “do it all” and “have it all,” and have worked in an environment that has become brutal and tiring. Women balance a demanding work environment requiring long hours and being always on with still heavy workloads at home (women work 2 unpaid hours a day more than men in developing countries). Government and business policies aren’t changing fast enough to accommodate the changing social requirements that demand more flexibility and shared work between men and women. Add on top of this the fact that we all must prepare for the changing work environment to remain relevant, engaging in lifelong learning and continually updating and evolving our skills.
If you feel these pressures and dissatisfaction with the state of your career, it’s likely time for a mid-career check-in to reassess and layout a plan for your next decade and more of your career.
Here are 5 actions to get you into motion:
(Note: Each action has an additional article that provides deeper explanation and some offer tools to help you along the way.)
Take stock. Conduct a career check-up first to gauge how you feel about the state of your career. Next create a Decade by Decade Horizon Map to both understand where you’ve been, where you are currently, and finally to get clear on your end goals. You have to know where you are and where you want to go before charting your next course of action. Listening to Dr. Ned Hallowell in an interview with Marie Forleo, he articulates the importance of identifying just three short, medium, and long-term goals to both focus your actions and help you achieve goals across multiple horizons.
Give yourself permission to take a break, no matter the length. Depending on the outcome of your career check-up, you may find that you could use a break or that you just need to create space for insights to formulate. Breaks are invaluable and have been found to increase creativity and productivity. Don’t let a one-size view of pauses keep you from taking the leap. They can take short and long forms and still be rewarding. Ina Garten, in a wonderful interview on Katie Couric’s podcast, shared how she took advice from a friend who advised that it would be hard for her to know what to do next after Barefoot Contessa and gain clarity without stepping away from what she was currently doing. In taking a break, Garten found her next passion project, writing cookbooks. We don’t all have the luxury to step fully away but carving out short pauses and quiet time can be invaluable.
Craft what’s next and get into action. Identify what’s important to you and formulate possible pathways that are uniquely right for you. Don’t wait to have the confidence to move forward (most of us would be waiting forever!), just be committed and get into action to test your way to what’s next. Herminia Ibarra’s guidance on the importance of trying on different career options shouldn’t be ignored. Better to test an option out before making a full commitment, and she counsels that it is often through this broader exploration that we find our way.
Make choices, make it yours. Be honest about your priorities, time demands, and your ambitions at this stage in life. At some point, know that you’ll have to choose where you focus your time and energy, and then don’t beat yourself up about it. Own it, focus, and give it your all. You need to create a life/work model that uniquely works for you and offers the “balance” or integration you seek in your world. As Alain de Botton, best-selling author and founder of The School of Life in London, said in an interview with Kinfolk, “Work-life balance is a myth…. You have to make choices, and therefore sacrifices. Having it all exists only in the mind of [Facebook COO] Sheryl Sandberg.”
Create your support network. Surround yourself with a community of people who will cheer you on and have your back so you can confidently progress forward. It’s also important to find a group going through the same experience, so you can know you’re not alone and will be supported. In a training on Designing & Leading Change at The Grove Consultants International, the instructors share a cultural anthropology concept of “communitas” (a community experiencing a transition at the same time) and how helpful this type of group can be while going through a change, like a rites of passage. Having the right community support can be invaluable.
Being mid-career can be just as disorienting as being in mid-life.
Yet, instead of it being a time of dismay and frustration, it should be a time of prime opportunity. At mid-life, women tend to come into their own, settling into who they are and gaining clarity on what’s most important to them. It’s a perfect time to take stock and craft a plan for the next decade and more of one’s career to make it the most personally satisfying and fulfilling and put you in the power position to craft exactly what you want.
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