Reclaim your job mojo

Should you stay or should you go? Melanie Burgess reports

WORKERS who find themselves in a mid-career crisis must either change their outlook or change their job.

Neither choice is more valid than the other and experts stress the importance of making the right decision for the individual.

Behavioural expert Dr John Demartini says all workers need to self-reflect regularly to gauge and monitor energy levels and enthusiasm for their job.

“Take action and start setting out a plan to achieve your longer-term career goals,” he says.

“Whether it may be to transform the role of your current position, to own a business or establish a career in a different industry, determine what is required to turn your dream into a reality.

“Some entrepreneurs began their inspiring careers in their 60s or even later, so don’t be discouraged from pursuing your dream job.”

Workers who discover they do not need a drastic career overhaul may instead choose to renew their interest in their current career path.

Dr Rodney Howard, organisational consultant and co-author, with Nicholas Barnett, of the book Why Purpose Matters, says everyone has the potential to find meaning in their work.

“As we dig deeper and uncover more of what makes our work fulfilling, we can often see that there are opportunities right now to enhance our sense of contribution and enrichment,” he says.

He says the key to finding fulfilment is for workers to view their careers through the “lens of purpose”.

“While balancing our innate desires for happiness, love and security with ambition, career progression and wealth creation can often be seen as polarising tensions, purpose offers us the opportunity to be guided by a deeper and more fulfilling desire,” he says.

Workers who reach the conclusion they need to change more than their perceptions may have to think outside the box to find their dream job.

Dr Suzanne Cremen, founding director of Life Artistry Centre for Archetype, Imagination and Vocation, uses depth psychology to help clients find their vocation.

One tip she gives workers is to think back to what they enjoyed doing when they were a child, before parents or schools pulled them in a direction.

“We often use ‘job’, ‘career’ and ‘vocation’ interchangeably but they are not the same,” she says. “To follow your vocation is about having a calling, and listening to your inner voice.

“Even if a person has this enlarged sense of vocation, the trick that many people struggle with is aligning

their job and career and vocation.

“People can have a job that runs alongside their vocation but what seems to be essential is your job or career in some way supports your vocation and doesn’t cannibalise it.”