Midlife Career Change?

When should you be thinking about switching careers? Always.

Career planning is particularly important for individuals entering or in their midlife years. This is because by 40, most people are set in some career or another, whether or not it is the best career path for them or whether they even enjoy it. Unfortunately, as we age, it is simply far to easy to do stay the course than to change it--even for the better. Proper planning and goals are the best tools to fight this career inertia.

Everyone should maintain long-term career goals and constantly monitor them against the changes in themselves (e.g., their skills, likes/dislikes, etc.), their life situation (for example has their family situation changed by having kids or getting divorced?), as well as the macroeconomic changes going on in the world (e.g., technological developments, industry shifts, new market forces, etc.) to determine if their long-term career goals need to be changed.

This focused planning doesn't mean that you are constantly jumping from job to job. In fact, the diligence you do on alternate careers might keep you from making a big mistake by leaving your current career for something that ends up not being all that you hoped it would be.

Career planning is a realistic response to the fact that as people age, they change, and therefore so does their most appropriate career path.

While the numbers vary, researchers believe that workers will make three or more big career changes in their lives. As our working lives extend past traditional retirement ages this number is almost certain to grow. Instead of being blindsided by life or industry changes, with proper career planning you can be in a better position to react to whatever happens--good or bad.

As with any serious goal setting process (and what is more serious than your working life?), it is best if your goals are written down and that you have sub-goals that lead up to your long-term goal. (Refer to any good goal setting text or this post for ideas how to do it).

One of the most important results of long-term career planning is to see what skills you lack but are obtainable. For example, perhaps one day you hope to be a teacher. But to do this you need your teaching credential and to do this you need to go to night school. And to do this you need to have a job that allows evening flexibility, something your current employment does not provide. In other words, you might find yourself looking for a new job in your current career to allow you the ability to acquire the necessary pieces to later move into your dream career. You'd probably never think to do this if you didn't have a written plan outlining how you are going to accomplish your career goals.

An important thing to note when doing long-term career planning is the incredible pace at which technology is changing jobs and careers. While you aren't expected to be a fortune teller in knowing how your career (or intended career) is going to be affected by technological changes, you should consider yourself a student of the industry you are in and whichever industries you want to move into. This means reading trade journals and especially blogs of these areas. Furthermore, you shouldn't just be reading this material but also capturing it so that you can refer back to it. This could be done the old fashion way (printing or taking notes and putting them in a file folder or using newer Internet tools like Del.icio.us).

Is this a lot of work? Sure, but if you are researching an area for which you have a passion it won't seem like work. It will feel more like working on your hobby, which to many is the definition of a successful career--it doesn't seem like work.

Back to the point of this posting. If you don't have a career plan, then you need to start one. It is never too late and in fact grows more important as you age. Midlife career changes can be some of the most gratifying transitions you'll ever make. This last statement comes from personal experience.

This post is part of LifeTwo's Midlife Career Change FAQ covering all aspects of changing careers in middle age.