'Help, I'm Having a Midlife Job Crisis!'

We are all familiar with the midlife crisis -- the colleague in his 40s who suddenly starts an affair or the manager who trades in the sensible vehicle for an open-topped sports car that the family can't actually fit in.

Now psychological research has identified a work midlife crisis that is similar to the traditional one -- but which can threaten to destroy an established career rather than a marriage.

In this midlife work crisis, you find yourself very unhappy in a job that you previously enjoyed, or you find yourself suddenly taking enormous and uncharacteristic risks.

Many financial frauds, scandals and sexual affairs at work are the result of these crises. Psychologist Corrie Pogson at the University of Akron in Ohio has just published intriguing research looking at the work ethic -- how much people value hard work and are committed to their jobs across various stages of life.

Surprisingly, young people just starting out in their careers seemed to value hard work much more than those in midlife.

This seems to run completely against the popular belief that the young are feckless and lazy while those in middle age are conscientious and reliable.

Pogson concludes that some middle-aged workers become much less interested in their jobs than the young turks coming up behind. Indeed, they appear to be positively disenchanted with their once- cherished careers.

So why does this happen? One theory is that an accumulation of disappointments over the years leads you to conclude that your efforts are not reliably rewarded -- and so you lose interest.

Another theory is that when young people first start on the bottom rung of a career, they are driven by a strong need to prove themselves.

This pushes them forward into taking the initiative frequently, while those who have been around for a while have become so confident in their ability that they become complacent.

It is also possible that as midlife beckons we start thinking about our retirement and become aware for the first time that work cannot fulfill all our needs. Because of this, we begin to look around for other interests outside work.

But the most profound reason for a midlife work crisis turns on the idea that those who are most satisfied at work are those who feel their very identity is linked to their career. For instance, someone who regards themselves as very caring might have a career like nursing. As long as their sense of identity doesn't change, or the job requirements don't, then a midlife job crisis is unlikely.

However, our sense of identity frequently does change -- as the latest psychological research by Phebe Cramer at the Department of Psychology at Williams College in Massachusetts has established. Cramer found that we are not fixed in our sense of identity from childhood as had previously been thought, and even in adult life, personality is constantly developing and changing.

So if our sense of identity is constantly evolving, yet our job stays the same, it is quite likely that we are no longer suited to that job -- hence the midlife work crisis.

The alternative is also possible -- that our job changes and no longer fits our identity that has stayed the same.

So how do we cope with a midlife work crisis and avoid disaster? The art of dealing with a midlife job crisis is first to recognize it for what it is, rather than simply put your boredom and disaffection down to a temporary aberration.

The next step is to evaluate what has changed: Is it you or the job itself?

It is likely to be a bit of both. The key is to focus on what aspects of your identity fit the job and which don't.

Perhaps you could compensate by taking up interests in your spare time or projects at work that feed your sense of identity better than the job does at the moment.

Often the solution is to change jobs or even careers -- but those in midlife are much more reluctant to consider this than younger workers, because they worry about the risk and the length of time they have committed to a particular career or organization, and don't want to see all that go to waste.

In fact, staying at a job that is making you unhappy is a much more serious waste of your talents and energy than changing and doing something that satisfies you.

Often it takes until midlife for us to realize what is the right career for us. Better to jump ship, even in midlife, than to go down with a sinking career, just because you wanted to stay loyal to your idea of what you wanted to do in your 20s.

Dr. Raj Persaud is a consultant psychiatrist at the Maudsley Hospital.

Source: Evening Standard; London (UK)

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