When it’s Time to Recycle Your Career

This month’s Career Collective topic is Best Advice for Career Changers.

When I think about how people make career choices, I often recall the scene from the classic movie, The Graduate. In it, a well-meaning family friend, Mr. McGuire, corners young Benjamin resulting in the following exchange:

Mr. McGuire: I want to say one word to you. Just one word.
Benjamin: Yes, sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Benjamin: Yes, I am.
Mr. McGuire: Plastics.
Benjamin: Just how do you mean that, sir?
Mr. McGuire: There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?
Ben: Yes I will.
Mr. McGuire: Shh! Enough said. That's a deal.

Among the movie’s other themes, one review makes a great point about the implications for how  “…aimless and unalive the disaffected young generation was…and would become as they approached middle-age and worked in sterile corporate settings.” It was, in fact, a chilling prospect; and in many cases, has become a daunting reality.

I’d love to say that we’re well beyond the time when people drift aimlessly into a career choice with the hope of a safe, secure, and financially rewarding future. Certainly, the world has become too uncertain to believe in such an outcome. Yet, I often see mid-career folks who want to make a career move into a field with more stability and more reward. And so they look externally to career forecasts. Frankly, it’s not the place to start.

As I see it, if you are at mid-career, the first place to look is to your career journey. For it’s in your personal career story where you’ll find the clues that will help you make a more informed evaluation of your best direction. So, doing some introspective work that uncovers the theme or themes that have directed your choices over time, you’ll be able to create a clearer statement of the differentiated value that is your brand, and you’ll know how your story validates it.

Once you have those insights, you can then fold them into a career vision. For that, I would strongly recommend the “I SEE Career Vision” exercise presented by Laurence Boldt, in his excellent, Zen and the Art of Making a Living. Basically, it’s this:

Integrity: What work will best fit with who I am?

Service: Whom do I want to serve?

Enjoyment: What will I most enjoy doing?

Excellence: To what will I devote myself?

There is in my advice, a bias that you ought to figure out what you were meant to do, and go do it! So, today, if there is one word for career choice, I’d say it’s “authentic.”

Are you listening? Think about it. Enough said.

What did other Career Collective members have to say? Here are links to their posts:

Are You Ready for a Career Change? @Debra Wheatman

Changing Careers? Ask yourself these questions. @erinkennedycprw

Changing Careers: Not for the Fainthearted, @GayleHoward

Career Change Isn't An Exact Science, @careersherpa

The 10-Step Plan to Career Change, @KatCareerGal

Best Career Change Advice: Target & Plan, @JobHuntOrg

How social media can help you change careers, @keppie_careers

Expat Careers: You Are Not Your Job Title, @expatcoachmegan

Changing The Direction Of Your Career, @EliteResumes @MartinBuckland

Career Changer: Can You Quell Bottom-line Ache? @ValueIntoWords

Top 3 + 1 Tips for Making a Successful Career Change, @KCCareerCoach

Changing Careers: Look Before You Leap, @barbarasafani

10 Commandments for Career Changers, @LaurieBerenson

Comments

[Gayle Howard, Master Resume Writer]

It is really interesting watching mature age people in transition. Often I find that it is a case of the "grass is always greener". Many a time I have had senior executives say to me that they yearn for fewer hours and jobs where they are finally, not the "buck stops here" guy. Yet, after striving and succeeding, in getting these lower level roles, they find they despise giving the authority to another, hate being told what to do, and find themselves hanging back after hours looking for opportunities. I guess it is hard to second guess yourself... what may be authentic to you at one stage, ends up being something different just a few months later! Good article Walter!

[career sherpa]

Oh Walter, you've done it again!
When will you publish a book!???

That safety/security thing is so wrong. Yes, wrong. Unless it leads you to a career you really will connect with based on the 4 areas Laurence Boldt addresses.

Wonderful post!

[Megan Fitzgerald]

Walter,

Love that exercise! Sometimes bringing it down to the essentials is what is needed to get started.

So fantastic to be a part of the career collective with you Walter.

Warmly,
Megan

[Walter Akana]

Hi Gayle!

Thanks for your comment. I’ve seen this too, and think it can often be the result of not digging deeply enough. And that digging is simply not all that easy or comfortable to do.

Frankly, there are lots of people still working who chose “plastics” as the answer. At a late stage of their careers, they now embark upon a work/life balance quest by focusing on the superficial elements of their job. Any satisfaction they may gain is typically fleeting.

What I am proposing is a deeper work that zeros in on what gives one’s life, and therefore one’s career, meaning. The quest needs to be for the central theme, or central purpose, of one’s life – and then grounding it in the elements of the I SEE model. Yes, it takes work, and maybe even facing some old demons, but the outcome is longer lasting and deeper satisfaction.

[Walter Akana]

Oh, Hannah! You are so kind! I’ve toyed with writing a book; and with encouragement like yours, it is even more tempting!

Yes, in fact the safety/security thing is so VERY wrong. Indeed, it’s what Seth Godin has been writing about lately. “Linchpin” really gets at this…and the reasons people seek out that safety!

There is, in fact, a certain level of facing your fears in all of this! Yet, ultimately, the way forward can begin with addressing the elements of I SEE. When people can figure that out, they are in a better position to summon the courage to make a difference!

[Walter Akana]

Hi Megan!

Great to be on the same team with you too!

I appreciate your comment and great feedback on the exercise. It is an excellent one.

In fact, I think Boldt’s book, because it is not a “typical” career book, is very well done and very inspiring.

[Matthew]

Great article Walter! I really liked the “I SEE career exercise”. I must encourage you to write a book.Well done! Keep it up!

[Walter Akana]

Thanks, Matthew. Wish I had thought of the I SEE exercise myself! It's a great one! Laurence Boldt's book is a great read - especially if you like mythology and eastern philosophy!