Managing Phase 2 of Your Career. The World is Your Oyster.
Posted on May 27, 2008
Filed Under Career Development, Gen X, Gen Y
40 may be the new 30, it sounds nice especially when you’re in the over 40 set, but the reality is 40 is 40, mid-life crisis anyone?. For those of us in the 35-50 set, we’re in what I call Phase 2 of our careers. Some of us have figured out who we are and what we want to do and have built the beginnings of a nice career in our chosen field. Other’s have bounced around a bit more, often dabbling in several career areas. The question is ‘what next?’. Where do you go and what do you do once you’ve established yourself? Do you just keep going and see what comes next? Do you take a sabbatical and then come back refreshed and ready? Do you change careers entirely and go in a whole different direction?
The good news is we can do any of these things and many of us are. The bad news is we may be somewhat limited by our current place in life. At 25, the world is your oyster. You can pick up and move anywhere at anytime. Post 40, life is frequently more complicated. Many of us are married and/or divorced and remarried, with kids and a mortgage or two. Raise your hand if you’re now upsidedown in your mortgage. With personal and financial commitments comes limitations. However, experience brings opportunity, professionally, the world is actually now our oyster more than ever before. So what do I mean and how do you get there? I’m glad you asked.
- Network. There are 3 critical things anyone must do in order to manage their career. The first is networking, the second is networking, and the third, sing it if you know the words, is networking. I have dozens of business cards in my desk of people I’ve encountered or met with in the last few years. I also have dozens of other contacts in my Outlook and or Blackberry and of course I have my LinkedIn profile (I leave Facebook and MySpace to the Gen Y set). Plus there are friends and people I know socially, but the point is I have a network and I’m constantly working on making it bigger. Chances are you’re current network is much bigger than you realize, but take stock, then take action.
- Make a list things you’d like to do in life. It sounds a bit cheesy, but I’ll bet if you’re over 40, you’ve already had some of these thoughts. So start a list. My friend Mike made a list of 101 things he wanted to do in 1001 days. His are mostly fun/personal, but the idea is without a map, it’s sometimes hard to find your destination. So make a list of things that are important to you, both personally and professionally. You’ll be surprised what it tells you.
- Set some goals. If you’ve made your list, this will inevitably lead to setting some goals. What type of job you want next, how much money you want to make, where do you want to live, what color should you paint the den? As I’ve said you’ll be surprised where this leads.
- Make a plan. You’ve got your goals, now how to get there? Do you need to change jobs/companies? Do you need to go back to school? Get out of debt? Move to a different city? Take a year off? Sell everything and move to _____? It’s your plan, so set it up and then put it in motion. One of my favorite expressions is ‘If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always got.’. Translation; if you want things to change, you’re going to have to be the one to make the changes.
- Tear up your plan and start over. Huh, you may say? That’s right tear it up or at least give yourself permission to. What seems like the ideal plan today, may not make sense in 6 months or a year. Feel free to make changes or re-do your plan. Life is in a constant state of change, so don’t lock yourself in. Personally, I’ve had several re-do’s on my current plan in just the last year. The key is to have a plan and actively work at it.
Finally, all this really comes down to being proactive in your life. When you were in high school, you made plans for college, when you finished college, you made your first set of career plans. Then life got busy. So take a step back and get back to planning your career/life. Putting money in your 401k is great for retirement, but don’t forget to manage your career in between.
Until next time…
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