So the question for many - whether Boomers wondering if it's time to hang it up or Xers curious about what could be next - is an assessment of the pros and cons.
Fear is often the primary decision-driver: that you won't find anything else, or that you're just trading one set of bad options for another, but without the seniority and institutional knowledge. But, as the following article explains, there is considerable evidence to suggest that those who leave on their own terms, even if the next gig is an experiment and far from perfect, are happier in the long run and frequently more successful.
As is so often the case, the issue is not the way, but the will. JL
Anne Tergesen reports in the Wall Street Journal:
Many of those who have made the leap say they have emerged with not only a new path in life but also a new understanding of themselves.
When it comes to your work, is it time to move on?
Millions of Americans in their 50s and 60s are delaying retirement and holding on to jobs they have done for years. Many, of course, need the money. But many others say they simply enjoy—even love—what they do. And if that’s the case, why not stay?
The answer: Because jumping ship—even if jumping would seem to make little sense—could be the best way to remain productive, happy and healthy into old age.Should you really quit your job via social media? Even if you don't opt for a public display, what should you know first?
The phenomenon of delayed retirement is well documented. Average retirement ages are climbing, and nearly half of baby boomers say they expect to work until age 66 or beyond, according to Gallup Inc. polls.
For the most part, that’s good news, according to academics and financial and health-care professionals. Continuing to work in some fashion as we age can benefit mind and body, as well as beef up undersized nest eggs.Tough Questions
But these same experts, and many older adults themselves, are discovering a downside to remaining at the same desk year after year—a tendency toward complacency, coupled with a reluctance to ask tough questions.
For example: Am I working because I truly love what I do, or am I simply afraid of change? Do the best and brightest staffers want to work with me, or do they see better opportunities elsewhere? Am I continuing to learn something new about my work and myself, or am I plowing the same ground again and again?
“Especially if you have been successful at what you have been doing, you start repeating yourself,” says Sherry Lansing, age 70, who walked away from a job she loved as chief executive of Paramount Pictures’ Motion Picture Group and now runs a foundation.
“You have done it and you know how to do it, and that’s comforting. But if you repeat yourself, the highs aren’t as high and the lows aren’t as low, and you start to lose that passion.”
The good news is that those who take the leap frequently report there is more to gain than they imagined. Some say passing the torch, through mentoring, teaching or otherwise advising, can be just as gratifying as carrying the torch. Others say embracing a new opportunity made them fall in love with work all over again.
There’s also the fact that every job ends someday. So is it better to be ready for that moment—or even pre-empt it—rather than have it catch you unprepared?
Philip Pizzo took the initiative at age 68 to step down as dean of Stanford University’s School of Medicine.
“I knew that even if I wanted to stay in that role, at some point there would come a time when others would believe—even if I was doing a good job or a great job—that it’s time for a transition,” Dr. Pizzo says. “The question is, to what degree do you want to influence that change? To me, it was important to have an influence.”
What follows can help you measure your passion for your current job and offers a look at what might be waiting on the other side of a decision to try something new.
A Look in the Mirror
A good evaluation of your situation, career counselors suggest, includes two parts: internal, in which you appraise yourself and your performance; and external, in which you examine signals from others in the office.
Bill Winn, a psychologist with career-development firm New Directions Inc. in Boston, advises clients to start with a list of what they like and dislike about their jobs, keeping in mind such questions as: When I’m “in the zone” and am so absorbed I fail to notice the passage of time, what am I doing? What am I not getting from my job? What have I set aside to do this job that I no longer want to delay?
Jacquelyn James, co-director of research at Boston College’s Sloan Center on Aging and Work, puts it more bluntly. “Are [you] embracing the next challenge—or coasting?”
For Ms. Lansing, the former Paramount Pictures executive, her first three decades in the movie industry “had gone way beyond any of my dreams.” But soon after her
50th birthday, with hundreds of movies under her belt, she began to feel she was no longer learning and growing as she had been.
“I watched the changes in myself,” says Ms. Lansing. After her mother was diagnosed with cancer, for example, she became engrossed in “learning about scientific advances.” A former teacher, she also wanted to devote more time to her responsibilities as a member of the board of regents of the University of California.
“If your priorities shift, that’s normal and healthy,” she says. “If your priorities don’t shift, then I don’t know if you are paying attention.”
One thing that can get in the way of an honest appraisal is fear—and not just of losing a paycheck. Peg Streep, co-author of “Mastering the Art of Quitting: Why It Matters in Life, Love, and Work,” says people who “primarily define themselves by their professional roles” have a harder time figuring out when it’s time to move on. They also “worry more about whether they should move on and what will replace the lost piece of identity,” she says.
That was the case with Tess Vigeland, the former host of “Marketplace Money,” a weekly personal-finance program that aired on public radio stations nationwide until June. By 2012, after more than two decades in journalism, her “gut” was telling her to make a change, she recalls.
But she hesitated—again and again—before finally taking the leap into a new career as an author, public speaker and host of conferences and panels on topics including women in leadership roles.
“I didn’t think about how tied my self-esteem, self-worth and self-perception was to what I did for a living,” she says today. “Maybe that’s why I stayed as long as I did.”
Ms. Vigeland, 45, says she wasn’t only hooked on the ego boosts she got when people recognized her voice or name. She also worried she was “too old to do something else.”
“When you have done something for a long time and you are probably pretty good at it or you would have left a long time ago, it’s hard to imagine yourself as anything else,” she says.
External Signals
Of course, an internal evaluation might well produce one “yes” after the next. Yes, I’m still growing and learning; yes, I’m still seeking challenges. All of which is fine. But it’s equally important to parse the external signals that others—including bosses, colleagues and clients—are sending your way, says Patricia Smith, a managing director at New Directions.
Some are obvious, such as being passed over for a promotion. But other, less obvious clues can be equally telling. Dr. Pizzo, now 69, the former Stanford dean, recalls watching three leaders in their fields toward the end of their careers.
Two practiced medicine into their 70s, when one experienced deterioration of his technical skills as a surgeon and the other grew rigid in his thinking. Eventually, both were forced to resign from a prestigious medical institution, a denouement each could have avoided by heeding warning signals from colleagues, who had stopped asking for the doctors’ advice and voted them out of leadership positions in their specialties.
In contrast, a colleague who has become a mentor of Dr. Pizzo’s voluntarily closed his laboratory at Stanford when he stopped attracting top graduate students. Reputation intact, he segued into an advisory role at the medical school and the university at large.
“Unless you look at the road signs around you and make alterations in your career trajectory, you run the risk of missing the flashing yellow lights and being forced to transition,” says Dr. Pizzo, who is now the head of Stanford’s Distinguished Careers Institute, a new program for midcareer professionals transitioning to new acts.
Laying the Groundwork
Many “quitters” say they laid the groundwork for a move without really knowing they were doing so. But their experience suggests ways that others can set themselves up for a transition intentionally.
Marvin Kaiser, 74, was the dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Portland State University in Oregon for 17 years. After stepping down as dean almost four years ago to return to teaching, he accepted a job as chief executive of Mary’s Woods at Marylhurst, a continuing-care retirement community in Lake Oswego, Ore.
Mr. Kaiser had no plans to leave the academic world; in particular, he loved working with students and helping them “become critical thinkers and stretch intellectually,” he says. At the same time, though, he had long enjoyed building ties to the local community.
In 2001, he joined the board of Mary’s Woods, and a decade later the community asked him to become its new CEO. A gerontologist by training, he accepted, realizing, he says, that the job was his “calling.”
Mr. Kaiser says his post at Mary’s Woods allows him to take “my lifetime of experiences, learning and, I hope, a little wisdom and bring some of that to bear in an organization that I believe in deeply.” But the chance might have never presented itself, he says, if he hadn’t done some stretching on his own.
The point: “Network in your community so that these opportunities might be there” if you decide to make a change, Mr. Kaiser says.
The Payoff
Many of those who have made the leap say they have emerged with not only a new path in life but also a new understanding of themselves.
An architect who specialized in renovating high-end homes in New York City, Mary T. O’Connor, 59, had worked for nonprofits throughout her career, designing and renovating small theaters in the New York area. But as she became more established in the residential market, her theater work dwindled.
In 2006, Ms. O’Connor inadvertently revived that passion, when—reeling from the death of her mother and the dissolution of a long-term relationship—she decided to take time off to join the Peace Corps. In the Philippines, she designed and supervised the construction of a theater for a children’s-rights organization, which uses drama therapy to help young victims of sexual abuse. The experience, she adds, reignited her youthful idealism. “I felt like I was really helping people.”
After returning to New York in 2010, Ms. O’Connor picked up where she left off designing homes and offices. “I thought, OK, I got that out of my system. Now, I’m going back to the work and life I love,” she says. But re-entry proved unexpectedly difficult. “I had everything I thought I wanted, but my life just didn’t feel like the life I was meant to lead anymore.”
Change of Course
When a friend in Akron, Ohio, invited her to visit, Ms. O’Connor says, “I realized there were plenty of places in the U.S. where I could do the community work I had done in the Peace Corps.” She ended up moving to Akron. With a lower cost of living, she supports herself renovating public buildings, including a community center and an independent cinema in what she describes as the “diminished” downtown.
“It feels liberating,” she says. “I want to be in a place where my experience can support enlarging the community.”
And what of her decision to walk away from her career and life in New York? It was “fraught with peril,” Ms. O’Connor recalls. “It was work I really loved, [and] I told people, ‘I can never leave New York. It’s my home.’ I still sort of feel that way.” But, she adds, she also knows she can always return.
Her advice is to wade in gradually and find ways to do some of the things you think you will miss. She retained her New York apartment until she was sure things were working out in Akron. “That took the fear out of [the move]. It wasn’t a complete break,” she says. And she recently designed and helped build a house for her sister’s family.
“Quitting doesn’t have to be irrevocable,” she says. “I adopted the idea of a trial, making a transition in phases.” Akron, she adds, “has been a much bigger life than I imagined.”
‘Passing the Torch’
Others say the opportunity to spend time “passing the torch”—by mentoring, lecturing, consulting, advising, teaching and serving on boards—can be just as fulfilling as building a career.
The “process of giving knowledge, time and energy to the broader community” taps into “deeply felt human needs to make a lasting contribution,” says Brian Fetherstonhaugh, chairman and chief executive of digital and direct marketing agency OgilvyOne Worldwide, who lectures and writes about career development.
Many who move on also find a better work-life balance. Dr. Pizzo, who worked “24/7” as dean of Stanford’s Medical School, says his current schedule of five or sometimes six days a week at the Distinguished Careers Institute gives him more time for family, including four grandchildren.
He also expects his decision to move into a new field will enhance his cognitive and mental health as he ages.
“I wanted to move from a field I knew and was comfortable in to a new beginning,” he says. Aside from creating “new neural networks,” starting over will ensure that “I won’t have to compare myself as an aging elder in medicine to my past self,” he adds.
“You reach a certain point where you can never climb to the same level again. I didn’t want to be that person looking at myself in the shadow of my past. I wanted to create a new shadow.”
0 comments:
Post a Comment