Through the years we have learned a few simple tricks to help deal with the symptoms of mid-career syndrome. These symptoms fall into three primary groups:
- Depression
- Withdrawal from family and friends
- The grass-is-greener delusion
The fundamental cause of depression is a negative attitude. It is a feeling of hopelessness, a belief that nothing can go right. Very few people with mid-career syndrome escape feeling depressed at some point.
Here's a tip. Buy a 3" x 5" spiral notebook. Each night before you go to bed, list three things that went well-three wins-during the day. It does not matter how small the victories are. If you had a really lousy day, maybe your first entry is nothing more than, "I remembered to pick up my win book and write something in it."
Do this every day for at least thirty days. As time goes on, read the notes from previous days. Notice the consistent in-crease in the positive quality of the entries. Keeping a win book creates and reinforces the habit of noticing the good things that are happening in your life. The more you notice the positive things happening around you, the easier it becomes to take advantage of opportunities. If your sight is clouded by a negative fog, you won't see an opportunity that is right in front of your face. Your win book can bring out the sun.
2. Preventing Withdrawal
Even though it may sometimes seem otherwise, your family cares about your career, your happiness, and your success. Too often people struggling with mid-career syndrome withdraw from their family rather than seek their support. During this difficult time it is imperative that you build solid communication bridges.
If you have never been one to discuss your inner feelings with your spouse, now is the time to begin. If you are like most people who fear openness, you are afraid that revealing yourself will show others your weaknesses, imperfections, and uncertainties. Although this does happen, you both must share your feelings in order to have a healthy relationship.
Your family needs to understand why you are having problems with your present situation and why you need a change. Discuss with them how your job is frustrating. Help them understand the effect your frustration has on your current home life. Discuss how things could be better if you were able to change jobs or careers. Through active listening, gain their perspective; find out what is important to them. Explore what impact different career scenarios would have on the lives of your spouse and your children. The resulting understanding will help your family cope with the disruption your career change will bring.
Try this approach: when you first come home from work, set aside a few minutes each day, about half an hour, to talk quietly with your spouse. If you have children, tell them that Mom and Dad need fifteen to thirty minutes of quiet. Encourage them to play outside or in their rooms. Use this special time to share the good things that have happened to each of you during the day.
Make a special effort to express feelings of love, understanding, and support for each other. Be sure this is a positive time; deal with problems later. If you make this a habit, in a year you will find that you not only successfully changed careers but also strengthened your marriage in the process.
3. Checking the Grass-Is-Greener Delusion
The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. When your ground is hard and dry, your neighbor's is moist and lush. Right? Maybe, but probably not. It is true that we are now living in a time of rolling recessions. During the 1980s when the Northeast was in a boom, the Northwest was in severe recession. During the early 1990s, when the Northeast saw its economic bubble burst, the Northwest was still bubbling along at top boil. So depending upon which coast you were on at what time, you could say others had it better than you. Yet in each region at any given time, some people were prospering and others were not. Why the difference?
To a large extent we make our luck. As consultants, we've sat and listened to one person after another tell us how terrible the job market is, only to learn that they made one or two calls a week on prospective employers. Other people would come to us working on the same type of career change and land a new job in two months. These individuals developed a marketing plan that included the task of making five to ten prospect calls a day. They worked the plan and it paid off in "good luck."
The antidote for this problem is objectivity. Realize that there are problems as well as positive aspects of any job. Work at listening to everything, not just what you want to hear, to ensure you don't get caught in the grass-is-greener delusion.
The Next Step
Mid-career syndrome is not fatal. The symptoms can be treated, but the cure will take time. You need to keep a positive attitude and enlist the help and support of your family and friends, and you must be committed to the effort required to properly assess and pursue your new career.
