Latest / The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten / Midlife Career Change And The Meaning Of Life

Transcript

Midlife Career Change And The Meaning Of Life · The Dr. Psych Mom Show with clinical psychologist Dr. Samantha Rodman Whiten

• 0:06
  Hi everybody and welcome to the Doctor Psych Mom Show.
• 0:09
  Before I start today, obviously, as usual, I would like to tell
• 0:14
  y'all to subscribe and that will allow me to keep on pumping out
• 0:19
  all these cool episodes for you. And I have ones on empathy, on
• 0:24
  neediness, on boundaries, on sex, on parenting.
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  So many different topics. Anyway, today what we are going
• 0:32
  to talk about is how to figure out what you want to do with the
• 0:37
  second part of your life. For most of the people who are,
• 0:41
  you know, in their 40s and beyond, which is a lot of my my
• 0:44
  listeners, some of them are coming up to the point where
• 0:47
  they feel like they don't like their career anymore and they
• 0:50
  may want to switch to something else.
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  So how would somebody go about thinking?
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  About a career switch, if especially if you are a primary
• 1:00
  breadwinner or somebody that you know is really family's reliant
• 1:04
  upon your income. So a lot of things that I talk
• 1:09
  about come from talking to a lot of my clients.
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  I have many clients who are very successful and who have very
• 1:16
  successful their career, but somehow they don't find it
• 1:18
  fulfilling anymore. And this could be for various
• 1:21
  reasons and some of the main reasons include that they've
• 1:24
  been doing it for so long that it's boring.
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  And some people, they were never really into their career to
• 1:30
  begin with. And some people, they've been
• 1:32
  doing a career that's super emotionally taxing for a long
• 1:35
  time and so they are burned out. And that one is common for
• 1:39
  people like myself in the healthcare profession.
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  So what would you do if you didn't do your career well?
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  I mean, one good thing to think about is what puts you in flow,
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  and flow is the state where you are not thinking about anything
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  and you don't observe time passing.
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  What are the things that put you into this mode of where you look
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  up and you're like, wow, 3 hours have passed.
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  How did that happen? So for some people, it's a
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  creative pursuit, like writing or painting or something like
• 2:14
  that. For some people, it's teaching
• 2:15
  something to somebody else. For a lot of people, it's a
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  physical activity. For some people, it's just
• 2:22
  something different than what they usually do.
• 2:25
  And this thing at first you can make it to kind of a side
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  hustle, which is a trendy term for just like a hobby slash.
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  Money making thing that you usually are more excited about
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  than your main job. So you know, for example, if you
• 2:42
  were you know in finance but you wanted to start writing, you
• 2:46
  start writing A blog about finance or whatever else.
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  And there's so many people that I work with that are in
• 2:53
  particular lawyers. I mean this is big work with a
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  lot of lawyers who are bored of shit with what they do because
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  they're super verbal people and. They just are always saying the
• 3:04
  same things over and over it seems.
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  And they are doing it at a very high level, but it's still kind
• 3:10
  of the same stuff and they've hacked it and they've learned to
• 3:15
  be successful at it and therefore there's not much of A
• 3:17
  challenge anymore, so. One thing to do is this side
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  hustle idea. Figure out something else to do
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  that you actually start doing in a way that perhaps could
• 3:27
  eventually yield you some more of a main piece of the pie of
• 3:34
  your income and your time, etcetera.
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  And this is usually the thing that puts you into flow is a
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  good place to start. Because it isn't it.
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  You know it is true that that thing if you do what you love
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  and you'll never work a day in your life, but.
• 3:50
  You know, you can stop loving something as much as you did
• 3:54
  before, Or you could start loving something else.
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  Or you could pick an occupation because it's related to
• 4:00
  something you love. But then the occupation itself
• 4:02
  doesn't turn out to be something that you love that much.
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  So figuring out what puts you into flow is a really good place
• 4:09
  to start. And after that, you know, you
• 4:11
  also have to think deeply about how much money you really need.
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  Some people are just on the treadmill of life and on the
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  hamster wheel, and they haven't really revisited any of their
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  financial goals. They haven't really thought much
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  about whether these financial goals are still resonant to them
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  or whether they should be reconfigured in light of
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  subsequent information, such as, you know, you're always saving
• 4:36
  up for the Ivy League, then your kid is, you know, smoking weed
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  and doesn't seem they're going to be going to college, you
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  know? And they don't really seem to
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  give a shit. So what are you really saving
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  up? $100,000 for you know this may
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  be a kid that you think is not even may not go to college.
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  So what are you really doing and or do you even want to pay
• 4:55
  entirely for your children's college or do you feel like if
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  possibly if they paid for partially of part of their own
• 5:02
  College in the way that you may have maybe they would develop
• 5:04
  some more grit or more of a work ethic or what have you.
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  That's just an example of potentially one goal that
• 5:12
  somebody could look at and say you know what I don't think the
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  same about this as. I thought 15 or 20 years ago, or
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  even 10 years ago. Also, as people get older, they
• 5:22
  can often pin career dissatisfaction as the cause of
• 5:27
  their overall dissatisfaction. But you really have to think
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  first before you do anything hasty, whether your career
• 5:35
  dissatisfaction is just depression and whether it would
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  be there anyway. So you know wherever you go,
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  there you are is the saying. And that's true with careers.
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  So if you are a depressed person, but you just don't want
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  to admit it, then your depression is certainly going to
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  follow you around from career to career.
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  And that's not going to help you or help anybody, because then
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  you may in fact regret leaving a career because you never got
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  your depression treated. So if everything is happening at
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  once in midlife, and it is a midlife crisis, which is a real
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  thing where people reexamine, you know, their lives at the
• 6:15
  mid. Point then you're upset with
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  your marriage and your job and your kids and your friends and
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  your physical fitness and your health and everything else.
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  That is probably not a career change that you need, but
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  possibly to go into more existentially oriented
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  counseling and figure out who you are, what you want now, and
• 6:36
  your larger scale goals and values moving forward.
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  I did a podcast, actually a subscription only podcast, about
• 6:43
  Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
• 6:45
  That would be helpful that I will link to here.
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  That could help you think about these sorts of things, your
• 6:51
  goals versus your values. So what else could you take into
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  account when you're trying to think about whether you should
• 6:58
  make a career switch and or what it should be?
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  Well, in addition to that money thing about your financial
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  goals, you need to think about like how much you want to work
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  in general and what it is doing to your life and what else you
• 7:13
  could be doing instead of working so.
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  If you are not really interested, so let's say your
• 7:19
  side hustle is writing, but it's never going to really make that
• 7:22
  much money, then do you really need to work more than you know?
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  You may have thought that you had to work for 15 years.
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  Well, what if you moved? You know, what if you downsized?
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  What if your spouse? What if the more of the money
• 7:37
  that they were making turned into something that was
• 7:39
  necessary for the family versus what you know, just superfluous.
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  A situation that a lot of primary breadwinners are in.
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  What is a way that you could rethink how much money you need
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  in relation to how long you want to work for before you would
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  devote yourself to something that is a semi retired project
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  life project and doesn't have to be a side hustle but can be your
• 8:04
  primary thing. Also, do you want to go back to
• 8:08
  school? This is not as crazy as it
• 8:10
  sounds. There's many people who go back
• 8:12
  to school for all sorts of different things and that can
• 8:15
  really put you on a different path as well as opening you up
• 8:18
  to more options. I know a lot of women in
• 8:20
  particular go back because they had kids and after having kids,
• 8:25
  they're more interested in kids, so they go back to something
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  related to children. So they become like, you know,
• 8:31
  go into child counseling or something like that.
• 8:34
  So this is a common thing that. I know a couple people that have
• 8:37
  done is totally changed their career in light of having had
• 8:40
  children and what that did for their personality and their
• 8:43
  goals and their career objectives.
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  So if you're trying to think about a lot of this and other
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  thing to think about is what did you learn about work from
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  growing up? This is a major piece of the
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  puzzle that a lot of people do not understand is impacting them
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  as much as it is. If you learn that work is just
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  shit and that it's garbage and that you're mired in it always
• 9:06
  and you're kind of stuck in the. Machine then.
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  That's what you are going to think about work, and it may be
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  that your vision and view of work is what needs to be.
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  Addressed versus actually leaving.
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  Because if you think about all work as shit, then any work that
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  you go to is going to feel just as monotonous and and trapping
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  you know. And perhaps you need to think
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  about whether your attitude was learned implicitly from what you
• 9:36
  saw growing up and whether you can reimagine your current job
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  and feel more liberated or free or creative at your current job
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  if you were not. Hampered by whatever worldview
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  you learned growing up about the limitations of work and how work
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  curtails your freedom and and is so terrible.
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  And those worldviews that you learned from growing up may have
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  been passed down through generations where people were
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  struggling financially and we're working at factories and so
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  forth, in a way. And then meanwhile you have a
• 10:09
  pretty creative job comparatively, but you just
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  learned the same way of thinking about it as would have made
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  sense for somebody in a sweatshop, you know, and so.
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  You didn't interrogate your belief about work deeply, so
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  it's ends up poisoning kind of whatever field you go into, no
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  matter how much autonomy or flexibility or, you know, agency
• 10:31
  or creativity you have. So these are all things to talk
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  about, by the way, with your spouse as well.
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  These are more interesting conversations than just the
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  small talk of what cereal we should buy and what
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  extracurriculars the kids should take.
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  When men and women are coming together talking about, how can
• 10:48
  we jointly. As a project, maybe reshape our
• 10:52
  family finances or change our financial goals such that one or
• 10:56
  both of us can feel more self actualized.
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  These are extremely interesting conversations that can be very
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  fruitful and productive. Also, as I've discussed many
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  times, women love a project and a huge project of reshaping our
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  lives, possibly moving somewhere, possibly thinking
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  differently about retirement, etc.
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  So that we can really live our best lives together.
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  You know, is is an extremely interesting topic that leads to
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  a lot of connection and closeness and interesting
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  discussions. A lot of people by the way their
• 11:30
  dream is to start their own business and that can frequently
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  be done with a spouse or at least with spouses.
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  Emotional support a hell of a lot better than it can be done
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  just on your own. And that would be something else
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  to put into the conversation is what if we started a business
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  doing XYZ? So many people feel that this
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  would be very fulfilling in so many different ways, a whole new
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  venture, but they just never bring it up because of how risky
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  it is. So another part of the puzzle
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  here is anxiety. So depression makes you feel
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  stuck and hopeless, but anxiety makes you feel like you should
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  never really take any risks at all.
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  And if you grew up in a house with a very anxious.
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  Parent, then you may think that going out on your own or in any
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  way messing with the status quo is way too dangerous and too
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  much risk. And sometimes that's just
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  anxiety speaking and it isn't real at all.
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  And in fact, if you looked at your finances, you're a lot
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  safer for a lot longer than you would imagine.
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  So these are all important discussions that you could have
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  A with a spouse, as I said, B with a therapist, C with a
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  friend or with any peer that's an.
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  A similar path, you know, of life.
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  So many people like, think that they are peers at work or like
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  so much more satisfied than they are, by the way.
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  And then if they're in an environment where they can have
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  an open conversation with any of these people, they frequently
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  learn that they're not the only one that hates their job.
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  And and a lot of people do think that they're the only one,
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  especially at high levels, because every everybody hides it
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  as part of the culture. But if you even just know one
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  other person that's struggling. Existentially, in the same way
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  that you are. That can give you a lot of
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  validation and reassurance and in fact even confidence to think
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  about different options. Because then it isn't just you,
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  It's like the industry or another person that you respect
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  that's struggling with similar challenges.
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  So hopefully this podcast made you think a little bit about
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  these sorts of issues that many struggle with alone on career
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  and meaning of life and what you should do when you hit a certain
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  age. This age is usually when your
• 13:43
  kids are either out of the house or you can see the writing on
• 13:47
  the wall that you're not having any more kids and you could see
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  it's a straight shot until they are out of the house at some
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  point soon. And this is when a lot of people
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  struggle with these sorts of existential meanings of life
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  issues, frequently in the realm of.
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  Who they're married to, as I discussed so many times, but
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  also equally as often in terms of career and what their greater
• 14:08
  meaning is going to be. And one last question that you
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  could always ask yourself when you're struggling with the
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  meaning of your life is what do you want written on your
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  gravestone? And this is a good question to
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  ask yourself to think, what do I really value?
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  Because if what you want written on your tombstone is something
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  so different than what your current daytoday life looks
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  like. You know, like if you want, you
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  know, loving father and husband and avid, you know, sportsmen
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  and whatever else. But then literally most of what
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  you do is sit at your office. Well, then what you're doing is
• 14:44
  not living in accordance with your values.
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  And it's no wonder that you don't feel terribly good day
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  today because as I discussed in the Acceptance and Commitment
• 14:53
  Goals podcast. You got to be living in
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  accordance with your values for your life to feel coherent and
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  integrated, which is what's going to make you feel not
• 15:03
  depressed and not anxious, but in fact eager and interested and
• 15:06
  motivated and engaged in your life as a whole.
• 15:11
  So if you like this podcast, please do subscribe, especially
• 15:15
  so you could hear that other one that I'm going to link you to
• 15:18
  that's so relevant, and I will talk to everybody soon.
• 15:21
  Have a great day, guys.