How Experiential Learning can alleviate the Mid-Life (Career) Crisis

I recently experienced a mid-life career crisis. It was awful. I felt a deep sense of regret about my past occupational choices, a feeling like I have not lived up to my full potential (despite any achievements along the way) and a sense of my mortality, highlighting that time to achieve my personal success story was running out.

I felt stuck and lost and unable to make a clear decision as to what my next move was going to be in my life and with my work. Everything that I tried to do to re-ignite the spark was blocked by one obstacle after another.

It took everything that I had (and a lot of help, support, and encouragement from key people in my life) to pull myself out of this quagmire.

The first thing I had to do was identify the cause of this crisis.

There were existential reasons, but certainly also practical ones.

I couldn’t be too hard on myself for my past choices, as at the time these paths forward made the most sense to me based on what I knew and what I believed to be the right thing to do.

Yet these choices had resulted in what I now term ‘mid-life-career-gaps.’

These career gaps can happen to anyone of us. They can be financial, they can be personal, or they can be soft skills or hard skills related.

I have identified five types of Mid-Life-Career-Crisis and the gaps that need to be filled to overcome them. In all instances, engaging in experiential learning (learning by doing in real world environments) can help.

Type 1: The Disillusioned Career Climber: Successful career but regrets

This person has spent ten years or more building a very successful career. They are in a senior position, typically with job titles such as Director, Executive, Vice-President, or Senior Manager. They could also be an accomplished professional in their field. They earn more than the average salary. They have qualifications behind their names and have most likely joined associations to obtain formal recognition for their continuous professional development.

However, something is missing. They feel like their career has not fulfilled their passions. Or like they have had to sacrifice parts of themselves along the way. They may have to deal with toxic work environments or partake in office politics to climb their career ladder, which has taken a mental health toll.

The pull to do something more meaningful to them is strong. They may feel like resigning or starting their own business, but at this stage in their lives this is tricky to do because they have financial, family, or other responsibilities.

This person can benefit from the types of experiential learning that will welcome their years of leadership skills and knowledge, while enabling them to gain and practise new skills in alternative work environments. This could include participating in experiential learning projects or short-term work assignments that include a structured learning component.

Learning entrepreneurship or how to start their own consultancy may be possible fresh career paths. The best way to learn entrepreneurship is to do entrepreneurship, but the learning curves are many, and it takes time to build something new. These options should preferably be pursued with financial safety nets in place in case things don’t work out as planned.

?

Type 2: The Poor Entrepreneur: Pursued passions but no financial stability

This type is more common than one thinks. Many of us choose to boldly pursue our passions or creative outlets in life from a young age, with the hope that this approach will make us millions, only to find that the journey is not an easy one. The ‘Poor Entrepreneur’ can spend a few years of their career doggedly trying to get a passion-led business to work, and while they may feel fulfilled on a personal level, their bank accounts get depleted along the way. It can be simultaneously heart-breaking and financially destructive.

If this type of person managed to get formal qualifications and other work experience along the way, they may find it easier to find a job opportunity to fill the income gaps and support them along their journey.

If not, they must rely on their transferable skills and personalities to access work opportunities. Someone who has been entrepreneurial for a while will have a boatload of skillsets, such as leadership, management, team building, communication and business development. However, if these skillsets were learned and practised in small, informal environments, it is difficult to demonstrate them as transferable skills into larger, corporate-style work environments.

This person needs experiential learning that will enable them to practise their existing skillsets in bigger environments and develop soft skills highly valued by bigger organisations, such as active listening and problem solving in larger contexts.

Not so ironically as one might think, the types of experiential learning that will benefit The Poor Entrepreneur are the same as the types that will benefit the Disillusioned Career Climbers. This is because each type exists on different extremes of the same spectrum – passion versus success or success versus passion. So experiential learning projects or short-term work assignments with a structured learning component are equally valid here.

?

Type 3: The Unguided Career Jumper: Never had any career path, bounces between opportunities.

A career jumper’s CV reflects a lifetime of adventure but does not necessarily bode well when interviewing for jobs. Interviewers are uncomfortable when they see that the person does not stay long in one place, as it takes a long time to find the right individual for a job and they want to mitigate the risk of them leaving. The more career jumps they have had, the less enticing they become to employers.

Often the reason behind career jumping proves to be lack of career guidance, especially as a young adult. Twenty years ago, career support was simply not as big an industry as it is today. A lot of us simply did what our parents wanted us to do for a living, or we rebelled against our parents’ wishes and chose our own thing, without really understanding why.

This person’s gap is therefore career guidance. They need to learn about the current different career paths, they need to assess their strengths and career fits and they need support to decide on what to learn to build a more stable career for the latter part of their life.

They may benefit from longer stretches of experiential learning that shapes their employability, while giving them two to four years of solid work experience in one place, such as an adult apprenticeship.

Shorter, practical learning programmes with built-in placement opportunities are few, but gaining popularity. This is also something for this type to consider, even if they must start at a junior level and work their way up.

?

Type 4: The Paused Goal Parent / Caregiver: Put career on hold for other priorities

Life is certainly not just about work. Careers frequently need to get side aside for other important matters, such as having and caring for children or the need to look after someone else who is unable to do so for themselves.

This can impact career choice and career progression. This type may find themselves needing to return to work after a break or find that their careers have been stunted along the way. This means that their gaps are often skills-based.

Firstly, it’s important to acknowledge that a choice to prioritise others at points in your life is a noble one.

If there is now time and opportunity to focus on yourself, then great, there is a full toolkit you can draw upon. Start by going on career support websites and find career-matching tools to help you get ideas as to what types of paths will suit you best going forward. Talk to a career counselor or career coach to get professional advice.

Engaging in experiential learning will help you fill your skills gaps more quickly and accelerate your journey. Look for the types of experiential learning that develop both hard and soft skills in the career-types that you are a good match for.

You may need to do some volunteer work as part of your experiential learning journey to boost your CV again.

?

Type 5: The Modern Dinosaur: Has a lot of skillsets, but needs to learn all the new ones

If you are over 40, you probably fall into this category over and above one or more of the aforementioned categories.

Technology and the world of work has changed dramatically in the last twenty years and brand new hard and soft skills need to be learned that take mature students right out of the comfort zones.

This person may have all the right leadership, management, or professional skills, but will have to upskill themselves in things like data literacy, data analysis, agile project management and data driven decision making.

An experiential micro-credential programme may be the right move for this type. Micro-credentials are short certification courses that can form part of a full qualification. They are aimed at teaching in-demand skillsets and are great for upskilling or reskilling.

This person may even consider completely changing their career to a contemporary role such as data scientist or sustainability manager, in which case they may need to complete additional qualifications.

They can opt for degrees with built-in sandwich courses, where part of the learning takes place in the classroom, and part of the learning takes place experientially in the workplace.

?

A mid-life career crisis can span across more than one of these types and experiential learning is the obvious way to help re-boost CV's and update skillsets.

However, as I found out on my own career-crisis journey, there are simply not enough experiential learning programmes out there and many of those that do exist require stringent application processes, show preference for younger students, are limited in terms of career choice, can only be provided if you are already employed, or force you to downgrade your hard-earned lifestyle to earn at the bottom end of the salary scale while you learn.

This is why I started the Experiential Learning and Employability Hub, a not-for-profit organisation. Please connect with me and follow our Company LinkedIn page to learn more.

https://www.dhirubhai.net/company/ele-hub/

?