Begin by looking at the position you're currently in. Are you happy where you are? Being discontented doesn't necessarily mean you should change careers entirely. Perhaps you've simply strayed too far from your initial intentions and need to rechart your course. Or economic and societal changes may have blocked the path to your original goal. Or as you've grown, perhaps your goals and needs have changed.
To determine where you stand, ask yourself: Why did I choose this career in the first place? What do I like about it? What do I dislike about it? Is there any way to build more of the things I like into the career (or job) that I already have? Not everyone needs a whole new horse to ride. You may simply need a different (and perhaps more challenging) path to ride it on.
For example, a 40-year-old pharmacologist in Chicago had devoted 20 years to academic research on psychogenic drugs. On the surface, it looked like he enjoyed a satisfying and challenging career. As the principal investigator for several grants, he enjoyed senior status and had accumulated an impressive list of research publications. Yet he actually viewed his projects as "assembly-line research."
"After a while, I was just plugging new drugs into the same experimental design," he explains. "There was nothing new or challenging about it. It was boring.'
Boredom is a symptom that means something. Regardless of your place in the hierarchy, it means you're either under- or wrongly employed. You have more skills and interests than your job can utilize.
Eventually, the pharmacologist grew so frustrated with his situation that he quit. He gave himself a year of play to reconnect with the things he loved to do, since he'd given up many "fun interests" early in life to concentrate on earning a PhD and building an academic career. In that year of leisure, he discovered that science was still his core interest, However, he decided he needed to apply his skills in a broader (and, for him) more meaningful context, perhaps in consumer research or education.
Professional plateaus present an ideal opportunity to reexamine your needs and values and, if necessary, redirect your career into arenas that will stimulate new growth. Looking backward to see how and where you may have made a wrong turn will allow you to learn from and prevent mistakes before you move forward.
What about the Money?
As an adult, you may find it more difficult to find a mission that doesn't require some extraordinary financial sacrifices. This is why lawyer-photographer Bill Daniels ended up living a double professional life for nearly 20 years.
At the ripe old age of 10, Daniels decided that law was a noble profession he wanted to join. He pursued this career arduously for the first 20 years of his adult life-starting as a law clerk for Julius Hoffman (the infamous judge of the Chicago 7 trial), then becoming one of the youngest law professors in the country at age 25. Later, he became a government attorney. Meanwhile, he was developing a passion for his hobby: photography. Daniels bought his first camera as a present to himself for passing the bar exam. Since he's an avid runner and running enthusiast, he soon started shooting marathons for fun. He found the activity so enjoyable that becoming a professional sports photographer began to look more and more appealing. So he sold himself as a part-time freelance photo expert, and managed to get sports magazines to assign him events to cover.
His interest and reputation spread. After a while, he was shooting more than just sporting events on his days off. When real-estate firm Baird & Warner hired him to photograph houses for their portfolio, you could see Daniels taking pictures at sunrise before going on to his regular nine-to-five job. Then a local television news station hired him to work with an investigative journalist. Suddenly, Daniels found himself crawling around in the grass or on rooftops to capture accidents, crimes and other events in progress. It was exciting. He was having fun. And he was earning money.
But he was also getting tired.
"I couldn't live a double life forever," says Daniels. "I needed to make a decision." At the time, he was already earning $20,000 a year as a freelance photographer. But he also earned an easy $60,000 annually with the government. After consulting with a strategic planning consultant who convinced him he could make the photography business go (and showed him how), Daniels decided to take the plunge. "It wasn't that I hated the law," says Daniels. "I just really liked photography so much more. Once I saw how to make a living at it, there was no reason not to do it."
