The
Mid-Life Challenge: Make a Plan to Re-ignite Vocational Passion
by: Craig Nathanson
Nobody will stop you in the hallway at
work to ask if your career provides meaning and personal fulfillment. Recognizing
that something’s missing in your vocational life and taking the initiative
to change must come from within.
Serena Williamson found a way to turn her
passion — helping writers hone their skills in order to get published —
into the catalyst for a new, more fulfilling life. Serena now runs her
own small publishing house.
Software engineer Bonnie Vining needed
a new career that would value her warm personality, not suppress it. So
she left the high-tech world and opened Javalina’s Coffee and Friends.
After Anita Flegg lost her engineering
job, she embarked on a program of self-improvement. The journey led to
personal discoveries and her calling: She provides information and support
to those who, like her, suffer from hypoglycemia.
I have found that many high achievers who
lose enthusiasm for their work share common traits:
-
Their work has little connection to the things
they really care about. Work is a barrier rather than a path to fulfillment.
-
While they may be doing something they’re
good at, it isn’t something they want to do. Unfulfilled professionals
haven’t taken time to align their abilities with their interests.
-
They have never made a long-term plan to guide
them toward a more fulfilling vocational life. They tend to set short-term
goals, or set no goals at all.
-
As they reach mid-life and understand the
need for meaning, they turn to their current workplace as a source of what’s
missing. Most organizations, though, are structurally incapable of providing
nourishment for the soul. So the mid-life employee’s frustration grows.
Mid-lifers like Serena, Bonnie, and Anita
take stock of their lives and careers. They develop a plan to re-ignite
their energy and enthusiasm for work. The process involves a number of
steps, but the common thread involves taking responsibility for making
life changes. Here’s how:
-
Identify what’s most important to you, then
develop and work a plan to get there. The plan should involve short-term
goals that lead to a long-term objective. When Bonnie decided that engineering
management was no longer for her, she applied the discipline of the corporate
world to her new career: owning a gourmet coffee shop. Bonnie learned everything
she could about specialty coffees and how to run a coffeehouse. She made
good use of experts in the field. She then moved quickly toward her goal
of opening Javalina’s Coffee and Friends in Tucson, Ariz. The thorough
approach increased her chance of success.
-
Make a list of your abilities and interests,
and then see how they match. You may be doing something you’re good at,
but don’t enjoy. Instead, find something you enjoy and then learn what
it takes to get good at it. Serena was fortunate that her vocational calling
was right under her nose. For years she helped friends and colleagues improve
their writing skills through informal coaching sessions. She realized that
the gift for teaching others how to transform ideas into prose wasn’t just
a hobby. It was a vocational calling. Today, she runs Book Coach Press,
which has launched 13 book titles (including my own “P is for Perfect:
Your Perfect Vocational Day”).
-
Don’t be afraid to move toward your goals.
Many people understand the need for change but are frozen in place. There’s
fear that we may be jumping from the frying pan into the fire. When Anita
lost her engineering job, she avoided self-pity and instead grasped the
possibilities of her new freedom. She began a journey of self-discovery
that uncovered a long-undiagnosed illness, hypoglycemia and with it a new
calling. She soon wrote a book on hypoglycemia. Now, she helps others understand
and manage the disease. Anita turned what could have been a series of unfortunate
events into a new calling that has brought vocational passion to her life.
Remember: No one will pull you aside at work,
look you in the eye, and ask if you’re really happy with your career and
your life. The power to understand what’s missing and do what’s necessary
to find it is yours alone. Take responsibility for change, and change will
happen.
About The Author
Craig Nathanson is The Vocational Coach™
and the author of the new book, P Is For Perfect: Your Perfect Vocational
Day by Bookcoach Press and the publisher of the free Ezine, ‘’Vocational
passion in mid-life’’. Craig believes the world works a little better when
we do the work we love. Craig Nathanson helps those in mid-life carry this
out! Visit his on-line community at http://www.thevocationalcoach.com
Articles Home: Motivation
and Inspiration Quotes, Stories