2 Reasons You May Be Struggling With Your Career Transition

Over the past couple of months, I have been lucky enough to have conversations with a few people who are exploring career transitions in their 40s.

While many of these conversations have been tactical, this is my view on why these transitions are particularly hard for so many of us at this stage of our lives.

1. We Have Never Learnt To Trust Our Inner Voice

Let's be honest, when most of us started out in our careers, there were really only a few options considered 'acceptable'. If your parents were professionals, they perhaps nudged you towards careers that had the security of a salaried employee. Perhaps they nudged you towards an MBA degree (or a CA degree), and this would 'secure' you a job that would be reliable and bring home the bread. The markers on this road that would tell you how well you were doing were about the institute you graduated from, or the job title you have or how much money you made.

If you belonged to a business family, the metrics you saw being used around you may have been different. Perhaps you heard a lot of talk around creating value in hundreds of crores. Perhaps you saw that those who were most admired in your family had done an extremely good job of each of these, all while building a business with a healthy top line and bottom line. The markers on this road were your companies size and scale, and your own net worth.

It is likely that pretty early in life you learnt what worthwhile personal goals might look like. And these have guided your own career... at least so far.

The problem is this, in order to 'fit in', you may have never learnt to pay heed to your inner voice.

Faced with a career transition in your 40s or 50s, you may be wondering where you could possibly begin.

Many of us have reached where we have by being very good at 'ignoring our inner callings'. We had instead internalised messages from our families around what a good life looked like. Most often, without much questioning.

Now suddenly, you are being asked 'what do you really want from your career or life'?

After all these years of ignoring our inner voice, this may not be an easy question to answer.

2. The Middles of Transitions Are Terrifying

Yes, you hate your job.

But then you may be wondering--who doesn't? After all, don't most people just manage, somehow just plodding along.

Who in their right mind would choose to give up whatever little they have and step into 'nothing'?

Which is exactly how a career void feels like. For a while, as you go through the process of transition, you will be stepping into a time when nothing is clear. For most people, this is an extremely uncomfortable place to be.

As people we abhor vacuum of any kind.

And when one path ends, we often rush to grab anything that will give us some sense of certainty. Yet tempting as this might be, it is also a mistake.

This 'middle' , or 'the void' is the most fertile ground for our personal transformation. It is when we are most likely to listen to what matters the most to us. It is when we are likely to try out new behaviours and new patterns of life. When done correctly, this is a time of immense growth and transformation.

Yet to be able to navigate these middles well, we need something that most of us have never really developed--heightened states of awareness and intuition.

Where we can dream the dreams we never have been able to acknowledge before; when we can select from the jigsaw puzzle of our lives, which pieces we wish to hold on to dearly, and which others make no sense any more.

Some of us have an advantage here. Those who have cultivated solitude, a meditation or reflection practice, or spending time away in nature have more experience with entering these heightened states of awareness and intuition.

For the rest of us, this is a scary place. There are so few familiar markers. Often we do not even have the vocabulary to describe to ourselves or others what we are doing 'away by ourselves'.

Yet when done well, this middle allows a period of growth and transformation unparalleled any time before.

When you can become anything. Who would you decide to be?

What is the way ahead for most of us?

First, to truly acknowledge that career transitions in our 40s or beyond are a gift. While we could build our second or third careers just the way we did our first, we could also choose something entirely different. The gift of discovering what would make our lives closely in tune with the people we are today.

They are a gift that allows us to discover and express ourselves in ways that are more genuine and rewarding than anything we may have done so far.

Second, is to accept (sometimes reluctantly) that this is a journey of inner growth. We cannot really rush it. We can at best create space for it in our lives. Spaces and where we are able to re-discover where we are in our lives and what we would like to be. This may be through creating moments of solitude, or time in nature, or frankly any other way that allows us to be in heightened states of intuition and awareness. This may be completely new to some of us. Yet, trust the process.

And finally, it is to draw upon, by any means we have, the most essential of all human virtues: Courage.

Making a transition is an act of courage.

Choosing a path that is finely in tune with who we are becoming is an act of courage.

Navigating the void, only with our own heightened awareness of ourselves is an act of courage.

It is no accident that loss is a critical part of every heroes journey.

It is only when we can give up that which is familiar, that we can begin to build something new.

The prize is real though. And one that most of us would value deeply.

A career or a life that is a truer expression of Us as we are today.

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(About me: I lead Unqbe, a think-tank and advisory firm around building future organisations, and building future careers. We track change through commissioned and primary research. We help leadership teams build the new workplace through a culture that supports change and people practices for the future.)