Mid-Year Check Up: The Full 360

This month’s Career Collective topic is Mid-Year Job-Search Checkup. 

Okay, I can almost hear what you’re thinking: “Washington is making massive job-killing mistakes, employers are either getting by with less or unwilling to expand, and besides it’s summer. So, what can I possibly do to move my job search forward?”  Frankly, if you’ve honestly been taking reasonable steps in conducting your job search, and assuming you’re using every opportunity to show your value and build relationships, there probably isn’t much more you can do.

An honest assessment at your efforts in managing a job search is important. Yet, in my experience, too many people in job search become so focused on landing that new position that they lose sight of the bigger picture: their lives.  So, maybe your mid-year check up ought not to focus on how you’re doing in your job search, but on how you want your life to be.

Consider the parable of the MBA and the Mexican fisherman.

If you haven’t heard it, the gist is this: A tourist with a Harvard MBA meets a fisherman who is content to sleep late, fish a little as a livelihood, play with his children, take siesta with his wife, and stroll into the village each evening to sip wine and play guitar with his amigos.

The tourist takes it upon himself to describe how the fisherman can grow his business, issue an IPO, and make millions. On the question of “what then,” the tourist tells the fisherman: “Then you would retire. Move to a small coastal fishing village where you would sleep late, fish a little, play with your kids, take siesta with your wife, stroll to the village in the evenings where you could sip wine and play your guitar with your amigos."

Okay, you may wonder how this applies to you.

If you’re like a lot of other career-oriented people, you may think that the real rewards in life will come at the end of your career. So, you keep focused on finding that job…or perhaps on the frustration of not finding one. But you may not have thought about how you truly want your life to be. So, whether you are currently working or not, take some time to do a life check up and consider how you may want to rebalance. Look at the full 360! In other words, think of how you invest your energy in the various parts your life portfolio, and figure out the return in satisfaction. And while you’re at it, determine to lift your level of happiness. To help you, a good summer read would be Get A Life: You Don’t Need A Million to Retire Well, Ralph Warner.

Sure, I know that considering your retirement is counterintuitive. Yet, by shifting your focus, you may discover that in creating a satisfying life, you may find you can reinvent your career in ways you may not have considered during your relentless pursuit of a new position.  Who knows, maybe you’ll find a way to sell a few fish so you can enjoy your more time with your family and amigos.

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

4 Summer Strategies to Step Up Your Job Search, @DebraWheatman

Putting Your Job Search Up On The Rack For Inspection, @dawnrasmussen

Mid-Year Job Search Checkup: Are you wasting your time? @GayleHoward

What is your unique value proposition? @keppie_careers

It is Time for Your Check-up Ms/Mr Jobseeker, @careersherpa

Mid-Year Career Checkup: Are You "On Your Game?" @KatCareerGal

How to Perform a Mid-Year Job Search Checkup, @heatherhuhman

Reposition your job search for success, @LaurieBerenson

Mid-Year Job Search Checkup: What's working and What's not? @erinkennedycprw

Mid-Year Job Search Check-Up: Getting Un-Stuck, @JobHuntOrg

5 Tips for Fighting Summer Job Search Blues, @KCCareerCoach

Are you positive about your job search? @DawnBugni

Where Are The Jobs? @MartinBuckland, @EliteResumes

Mid-Year Job-Search Checkup: Get Your Juices Flowing, @ValueIntoWords

When Was Your Last Career & Job Search Check Up? @expatcoachmegan

Is Summer A Job Search Momentum Killer? @TimsStrategy

Is It Time for Your Resume Checkup? @barbarasafani

 

Comments

[Gayle Howard]

What a fascinating and refreshing perspective Walter. After reading it, I feel oddly inspired! (I guess you do that to people a lot!). I think all of us at some stage forget to stop and smell the roses. And you are so right; sometimes finding a new lifestyle can take you down different paths of interest that you may never have considered before! Interests that allow you to seek new opportunities. What a great article!

[Hannah Morgan]

Walter:

YES! The concept of retirement might be dying. With all of us living longer and social security shaky, why are we killing ourselves so that we can live life during our retirement?!

Live the life you want now! Make it fulfilling!

What a wonderful message! I hope people hear it!

[Megan Fitzgerald]

Great post Walter!

I love that Mexican fisherman story. Understand what you really want, and find the most effective way to find it - not just following wisdom of the uber successful. Each of us have parts of our lives that are just as we want it - building on that will help us find the joy and peace many expect won't come until after our official career is over.

Thanks for those wise words!
Megan

[Meg Montford]

Good reminder in this post, Walter. I agree - it's very important to focus on the "who" you are, then the "what" you want to do will follow. When you let job search burnout dominate every waking hour, you can develop a bad attitude - and then, whatever you've accomplished so far may begin to unravel. Thanks for sharing this perspective to the job search process.

Meg

[Walter Akana]

Thanks Gayle! You know you can always count on me for taking a slightly (or not so slightly) different angle!

In thinking about that mid-year check up (especially in an environment where even doing the right things may still mean a long job search), it seemed a good time to suggest looking at the bigger picture.

In fact, I do believe that by stepping outside of the box we so often put ourselves in, we may see ways to make a better life that helps us escape the treadmill we think we have to jump back on!

Not advice for everyone, necessarily, but there are lots of people who may benefit from this kind of check up!

[Walter Akana]

Hi Hannah! Thanks, as always for your great comment! You definitely get it!

Interestingly, at Right Management, I faciliated a life options workshop for people just beyond mid-career. Typically, the response was that this is the kind of mindset they wish they’d developed years earlier.

Actually, what most people don’t realize is that nose-to-the-grindstone work and sacrifice makes you ill prepared to enjoy yourself with new-found free time!

So, if you can’t live a meaningful life now, you won’t be prepared to live one when you retire (whatever that means!!).

[Walter Akana]

Thanks, Megan! That story is one of my favorites!!

The lesson, just as you point out, is that we all need to understand what we really want. Of course, since it can be a moving target, we do need to check in from time to time.

I think the idea of a life well lived is what drives my affinity to personal branding as a process. Because the work helps you reach deep introspective insights you can discover the core of who you really are.

And once you learn that you can be yourself, you can take that permission and apply it in a variety of ways that serve your vision for the world while providing you great personal satisfaction!!

[Walter Akana]

Thanks, Meg! You’ve hit an angle I wasn’t really considering, but is so very true!

Even a model job search still has that element of being driven that can create frustration, and ultimately burnout, the longer it goes. And while I’m not saying everyone should dramatically alter their career path, I think pausing to determine if the path is the right one is well worth the effort.

For me, that means putting your career into the context of your life and seeing if it is leading you closer to the meaning and fulfillment your want for yourself and your loved ones. If not, then clearly there is a need for making significant adjustments!