Midlife Crisis and Career Planning
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This paper is an examination of the phenomenon of the midlife crisis and its effects on career planning and career change. In the course of life, individuals confront a series of challenges that help to shape personality and determine responses to problems, issues, and life stages. Psychologists have focused more attention on the developmental stages of childhood, but many researchers have come to believe that personality continues to be shaped significantly throughout life. The passage into midlife, when the individual begins to realize his or her limitations and mortality, can present the individual with one of life's most dramatic crises, and this drama is often manifested in the urge to pursue a new career as part of an overall desire to implement sweeping change in the direction of his or her life choices. Change can be beneficial when it consists of reevaluation and reaffirmation, but midlife can also be a dangerous time for the individual unable to find real meaning and purpose in his or her life and work. Midlife career change often provides an intriguing barometer of the individual's ability to benefit from the challenges that the onset of midlife can present. Gail Sheehy's book, Passages, raised public awareness of the concept of the midlife crisis, an important point in individual development which she describes: As we reach midlife in the middle thirties or early forties, we become susceptible to the idea of our own perishability . . . We are not prepar
. . .
e crisis of middle age lose the opportunity for the "intrigue, surprise, and exhilaration of discovery" that this transition period can provide (18).
One of the most rewarding opportunities midlife can stimulate is career reexamination and the possibility of career change, both common occurrences in individuals entering or about to enter their forties. Career change begins with feelings of dissatisfaction; Sheehy writes, "A sense of stagnation, disequilibrium, and depression is predictable as we enter the passage to midlife" (16). Career can provide a focus for general dissatisfaction, as well as providing a way to avoid acknowledging the crisis at hand.
By concentrating on career, individuals can either try to escape a midlife crisis or work through it. Reevaluating career directions and goals and even considering trying out an entirely new career path can help crystallize the other questions that reaching middle age raises. Especially because career has such a significant impact on all other aspects of life, considering a career change can be important in dealing with a midlife crisis. Sarah and Paul Edwards describe an example of this process:
Donald was working as the creative director at one of the country's large
. . .
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Approximate Word count = 2116
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)
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