Struggling Through Midlife

If yesterday's post was a little flip regarding the very real anxiety men feel in today's economy, I offer another voice for career change help. He's H. Les Brown, a career change consultant, and he writes about midlife mastery and career change.

His latest article focuses on two key factors that everyone needs to take if they're feeling stuck in their job:

1. Create an exit strategy. An exit strategy is nothing more than asking, "What if?"
2. Make one decision right now. Acceptance is not complacency, but merely the first step in a series to put you on a path of a meaningful midlife transition.

What motivates a person to make a career change is different for everyone. Oddly, my exit strategy was also my decision. I found that with decision came direction. I knew what type of company culture/values I was looking for, I knew I liked the freedom of being self-employed, I expected to paid my full worth, and I knew relocating would be very stressful for me and my family.

When I accepted the fact that I no longer wanted consulting clients, for example, I created an opportunity to work in-house, on contract, for a stable, respected company without having to relocate.

Having purposely avoided the corporate environment my entire career, working for one of the largest companies in the world feels like landing on another planet, which is kind of fun for me. But if you're in a soul-deadening career, it's never too late to get career change help.

I don't know H. Les Brown personally, but his enlightening articles will at least provide the first step: Direction.

 

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. ~ Anais Nin

Comments

[Nicolette]

Hi Les,

I found your article from one of my original blogging buddies, Wes Hein, at www.Lifetwo.com. I believe you offer a compelling voice for finding one's purpose in life. One silver lining to the current financial meltdown may be that men in particular will begin asking, "What is my purpose in life?" at an earlier age rather than being focused solely on making money.

Rather than facing a crisis at midlife, they can begin to create guideposts toward their ultimate destiny.

[H. Les Brown]

Thanks for the kind words! I often link finding your career direction to discovering your destiny through a program of self-awareness, keeping in mind that 'destiny' is not a static concept but, with every decision a person makes, that destiny further evolves and may appear under a number of diverse guises. Only under deeper scrutiny does the underlying pattern start to appear. Unfortunately, this is a skill that most men are not very good at.

I'm happy I got a track-back from your blog, because you're offering a rich source of information in a subject area where few are doing much work.

- Les