Mid Career satisfaction

8/9/2019 Mid Career satisfaction

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stage of growth. And growth, in turn, is a state of dynamism and sometimes confusion. In this state, mid career pro

aced with certain questions:

what I should be doing?

l concern for midpros who have spent some years on a particular job and are not sure if they have progressed the w

vel of job satisfaction?

are very happy or unhappy with their jobs, they would know. However, often, midpros are unsure - they are neither

r current organisation and would like to be able to determine their level of job satisfaction, if possible.

ng my work life well enough with my family life?

ghly focused on their career and work front, and tend to be spend more time at the workplace. Often, they might not

families, and their personal life might need attention. Or, in the process of trying to balance between their personal want to know if they are balancing work and life well enough.

pany provide me the opportunity to get where I want to? If not, which company will?

have clear career goals; others may not. In either case, they would want to determine whether their current organisaheir career goals. If not, they might consider joining another organisation that is more liklely to help them reach thei

hange jobs, whom should I approach?

e who care for the unique capabilities and functional expertise that I have? Will they junk my CV or stay in touch w

to get a suitable placement? These concerns are natural when a midpro needs placement help and is not aware of thshe is likely to shape up in regard to them.

nt service providers make a proper match?

ook for a placement service, often wonder if there's anyone who matches their profile with that of the targeted role r

efore placing them.

ent service providers keep my resume and application confidential? Or is my boss or management likely to come to

means?

t portals provide employers and consultants access to their databases, this concern of midpros is justified. Midpros went only to a few relevant companies for jobs that fit them.

f am I financially?

dge their employability in terms of an adequate pay package. "Is my pay package sufficient to educate my children

mfortable life with my family and provide for my retired life? Is there a way to plan for this?" Such questions bother



ettle commercial considerations, so as to be able to concentrate on their job and give their best to it.

ed to get where I want to get? If not, what should I do?

seek a career move either within their current organisation or outside it, they want to rate their existing capabilities he role requirements needed for the job aimed for. Along with their personal aspirations and professional preferenc

my goals, is my knowledge and qualifications sufficient? Is there anything else I should do to equip myself?

the need to upgrade themselves constantly throughout their careers to stay on course to achieving their ambitions.

and depth of my experience sufficient?

on their previous experience to get better opportunities, and want to gauge whether they are ready for the move upw

ay I can plan my career to get where I want to get?

ed to ask this question, and find an answer to it, as early in their respective careers as possible -- how well their care

hether they achieve their professional potential rests on this crucial consideration.

s Work and Life Satisfaction in Relation to Career Adjustment

sychology, University of Akron, Akron, OH 44325-4301

n women's satisfaction and career adjustment encompasses a broad range of women's career experiences subsequen

e experiences most commonly investigated in relation to satisfaction include satisfaction in relation to work experien

satisfaction in relation to managing multiple roles, and satisfaction in relation to occupational transitions. Conclusiothe need to use multidimensional assessments of satisfaction and to use more qualitative assessment strategies as the

-normative events than are standard quantitative approaches.

Definition:

halfway stage of career: the middle stage of a career, when somebody is established but has mamore working years remaining

adjective



Definition:

of halfway stage of a career: relating to or taking place during the middle stage of a career

adverb

Definition:

halfway into a career: at or during the middle stage of a

For the last two decades, professional women have entered the workforce at an un

te their labor force participation rates, numerous studies reveal that professional wog, struggle with bias in performance appraisal, promotion, and salary, and are confrrk/life tradeoffs as they climb the corporate ladder. Yet, relatively little is known abouofessional women are with their careers, particularly as they move beyond entry lev

What are the critical factors that explain women's midcareer satisfaction? What factoamong women in their midcareer satisfaction? Drawing on streams of research in gens, careers, sociology, and psychology, this paper begins to map out key demographanizational, job, and stress factors proposed to explain professional women's midcar. Directions for future research are highlighted.

is paper aims to explore how mid-career professional mothers perceive themselves in relation to their woy experience these roles, how they merge their work, family and individual self, and what meaning they m

odology/approach – The study used in-depth qualitative interviews with 18 participants aged between 3endent child under the age of 18, in dual-earning/career households.

he study reports that a complex relationship of work-related dynamics and personal factors shaped the mamid competing priorities of work, family and individual lives. Organisation and co-ordination of multiple a

various sources was fundamental to finding balance. A deep sense of motherhood was evident in that theone priority but career was of high importance as they sought stimulation, challenges, achievement and ew, in mid-career transition, the respondents seek more self-care time in an effort to find new meaning in tion.

itations/implications – The study raises important issues for the management of professional working mf the study for individuals and organisations are set out.

alue – This paper makes contributions to work-life integration and career theory. It provides one of the firsrk-life integration in Ireland using the construct of meaningful work and secondly builds on the kaleidosco



GES

ge approach is one way to look at career development. The way in which a researcher approaches the issue ofed on Levinson’s life stage development model (Levinson 1986). According to this model, people grow througransition periods. At each stage a new and crucial activity and psychological adjustment may be completed (OIn this way, defined career stages can be, and usually are, based on chronological age. The age ranges assignnsiderably between empirical studies, but usually the early career stage is considered to range from the ages of 2

m 35 to 50 years and the late career from 50 to 65 years.

uper’s career development model (Super 1957; Ornstein, Cron and Slocum 1989) the four career stages aferent psychological task of each stage. They can be based either on age or on organizational, positional or pro

ple can recycle several times through these stages in their work career. For example, according to the Career Coe actual career stage can be defined at an individual or group level. This instrument assesses an individual’s avarious tasks of career development (Super, Zelkowitz and Thompson 1981). When tenure measures are used, trial period. The establishment period from two to ten years means career advancement and growth. After teneriod, which means holding on to the accomplishments achieved. The decline stage implies the development ofof one’s career.

eoretical bases of the definition of the career stages and the sorts of measure used in practice differ from one studhe results concerning the health- and job-relatedness of career development vary, too.

as a Moderator of Work-Related Health and Well-Being f career stage as a moderator between job characteristics and the health or well-being of employees deal w

d its relation to job satisfaction or to behavioural outcomes such as performance, turnover and absenteeism (Ctween job characteristics and strain has also been studied. The moderating effect of career stage means sta

ation between measures of job characteristics and well-being varies from one career stage to another.

ent usually increases from early career stages to later stages, although among salaried male professionals, jobwest in the middle stage. In the early career stage, employees had a stronger need to leave the organization anMcElroy 1987). Among hospital staff, nurses’ measures of well-being were most strongly associated with carecommitment (i.e., emotional attachment to the organization). Continuance commitment (this is a function of perd degree of sacrifice) and normative commitment (loyalty to organization) increased with career stage (Reilly and O

s was carried out of 41 samples dealing with the relationship between organizational commitment and outcomemples were divided into different career stage groups according to two measures of career stage: age and tenure

significantly affected turnover and turnover intentions, while organizational tenure was related to job performance onal commitment was related to high turnover, especially in the early career stage, whereas low organizational absenteeism and low job performance in the late career stage (Cohen 1991).

p between work attitudes, for instance job satisfaction and work behaviour, has been found to be moderated by egree (e.g., Stumpf and Rabinowitz 1981). Among employees of public agencies, career stage measured enure was found to moderate the relationship between job satisfaction and job performance. Their relation was st

This was supported also in a study among sales personnel. Among academic teachers, the relationship betwee



as found to be negative during the first two years of tenure.

career stage have dealt with men. Even many early studies in the 1970s, in which the sex of the respondents wt most of the subjects were men. Ornstein and Lynn (1990) tested how the career stage models of Levinson andhe career attitudes and intentions among professional women. The results suggest that career stages based on agcommitment, intention to leave the organization and a desire for promotion. These findings were, in general, s

men (Ornstein, Cron and Slocum 1989). However, no support was derived for the predictive value of career stageasis.

s have generally either ignored age, and consequently career stage, in their study designs or treated it as a confofects. Hurrell, McLaney and Murphy (1990) contrasted the effects of stress in mid-career to its effects in early andfor their grouping of US postal workers. Perceived ill health was not related to job stressors in mid-career, but wof skills predicted it in early and late career. Work pressure was related also to somatic complaints in the ear

ilization of abilities was more strongly related to job satisfaction and somatic complaints among mid-career workeence on mental health than physical health, and this effect is more pronounced in mid-career than in early or laata were taken from a cross sectional study, the authors mention that cohort explanation of the results mightey and Murphy 1990).

le and female workers were grouped according to age, the older workers more frequently reported overload andrk, whereas the younger workers cited insufficiency (e.g., not challenging work), boundary-spanning roles and phyow, Doty and Spokane 1985). The older workers reported fewer of all kinds of strain symptoms: one reason fosed more rational-cognitive, self-care and recreational coping skills, evidently learned during their careers, buptoms during one’s career may also explain these differences. Alternatively it might reflect some self-selection, w

them excessively over time.

and US male managers, the relationship between job demands and control on the one hand, and psychosomatic nd in the studies to vary according to career stage (defined on the basis of age) (Hurrell and Lindstrцm 1992, LindUS managers, job demands and control had a significant effect on symptom reporting in the middle career sta

stage, while among Finnish managers, the long weekly working hours and low job control increased stress symput not in the later stages. Differences between the two groups might be due to the differences in the two sam

ers, being in the construction trades, had high workloads already in their early career stage, whereas US manorkers - had the highest workloads in their middle career stage.

results of research on the moderating effects of career stage: early career stage means low organizational comll as job stressors related to perceived ill health and somatic complaints. In mid-career the results are conflictind performance are positively related, sometimes negatively. In mid-career, job demands and low control are rerting among some occupational groups. In late career, organizational commitment is correlated to low absenindings on relations between job stressors and strain are inconsistent for the late career stage. There are som

coping decreases work-related strain symptoms in late career.

entions to help people to cope better with the specific demands of each career stage would be beneficial. Vocatio

of one’s work life would be especially useful. Interventions for minimizing the negative impact of career plateauian be either a time of frustration or an opportunity to face new challenges or to reappraise one’s life goals (WeResults of age-based health examinations in occupational health services have shown that job-related problemsy increase and qualitatively change with age. In early and mid-career they are related to coping with work ove

career they are gradually accompanied by declining psychological condition and physical health, facts that indicaional intervention at an individual level (Lindstrцm, Kaihilahti and Torstila 1988). Both in research and in practnover pattern should be taken into account, as well as the role played by one’s occupation (and situation within t

evelopment.



overing Your Career Life Cycle

1990's will be characterized by history as the birthdate of what Secretary of Labor Robert B. Reich calls the "anxie

ty class live lives of economic and vocational uncertainty and instability created by a highly competitive and rapidletplace which depreciates the job security of every worker who is not growing and changing in response to market the entry level trainee to the occupant of the presidential suite is vulnerable.

ise of the anxiety class may mark the end of an era where vocational self-expression was seen to be something of a

mate expectation. Bob Reich would the be first person to argue that it does not have to be so. Vocational self-expres are not mutually exclusive. In fact many analysts say we are in what they call a "post-job environment" and I wou

t a post-career environment where your acquisition of new skills and your educational flexibility must be rooted in y

ional self-understanding rather than a passive submission to your "right career."

old career structure which emphasized commitment to one career for life was based on routine production, economi

tural stability. That structure stressed job security and favored a static long-term commitment to your Right Career. r track, I would call it a career rut, and stayed in place. Workers trapped in the early stages of their career lifecycle

ity in an environment in which there is no longer any job security for anybody.

new career structure is one where individuals are active agents in their own career development. The career process

s that we each construct self-images such as vocational identity that influence our response to the environment. Thi

ional self-understanding is developmental in nature, that is, it changes over time in somewhat regular patterns we a

d in intrinsic motives (e.g., nurturance, curiosity, achievement) that help guide our career choice andopment.

wn life work within career counseling has been to use testing to examine inner originating motives that define the f

and play. I think that we must all address work and personality from the perspective of intrinsic satisfaction, a viewity that focuses on our unique contribution to whatever organization or work we do. This identity is grounded in bei

choosing which skills, knowledge, and abilities we want to assemble into a vocational self-understanding.

we all need to be seeking is employment security based on life-long learning of new skills consistent with our care

lso need to develop job search expertise like networking skills which will help us move relatively easily from job to

competencies in the boundaryless career are know-why, know-how, know-whom. The combination of skills, evolvirstanding, and renewal of our vocational competency permit us to maneuver in the new economy. Our job-relevant

raints, and our network of contacts interact with structural characteristics such as vacancy-driven opportunity boun

rs, our social container, to create careers.

new work environment asks each of us to devlop skills which permit self-management and vendor-orientation and aan ownership stake in the business at hand. Networking, learning, and enterprise are the new critical career success

s new environment, every individual is in the business of being herself: her competencies and commitments, her kn

nization's product and work, her experience at coordinating her work with that of others inside and outside the organy her ability to motivate herself to do what needs to be done. This new environment is the very picture of freedom y

freedom as synonymous with insecurity. Vocational fear and learned helplessness can and do paralyze the worker a

ent she needs all her self-consciousness in order to compete effectively. When I entered the field, career counseling



mptions that the college-to-work transitions was fundamental and virtually irreversible for career development and t

ventions were supplementary. That is no longer true.

lecture is about the developmental patterns underlying the resistance of many workers to growing and responding t

nds of 21st century capitalism where the web has replaced the ladder as the dominant career metaphor.

hift in focus from vocational self-expression to vocational competition is palpable to many in my profession. The fopment advising is, in my own experience and as reported by my colleagues, shifting from basic issues of vocation

e on acquiring an edge in skills or education or opportunity. This would not be troubling to me if the strategic issue

concept were adequately resolved before moving into purely tactical career planning about how to acquire the qualifs. Worries about job vulnerability and how to guard against it dominate career planning discussions which not long

ng the vocational identity which was consistent with your deepest, wisest self.

e developmentally vital discussions of self-expression in employment are now routinely jettisoned for recipes on ho

ational loans, hide your performance deficits, and insulate yourself against job loss. The latter are not unimportant q

eing asked too soon and too often thereby putting the cart before the horse.

es radicals pointed an accusing finger at their parents and chanted, "You are what you do." In part they took their cu

p of young career counselors who advised: "Do what you are." A generation which rejected the notion that your ide

work yearned for the opportunity to allow their own unique vocational self-understanding to define their vocation, of the 1980s complied with their wishes offering a diverse and rich base of employment opportunities. That genera

ked to look around and see increasing numbers of its members out of a job or unhappily employed in jobs they dare

harp edges of a market economy outline a Procrustean bed for many workers. For instance, the failure of 1994 heal

obbed workers of additional mobility. Surveys suggest that 10 percent to 30 percent of workers are now reluctant to

use of fear of losing health coverage due to preexisting conditions. Reform that guarantees every person continued hworkers to seek better jobs - and not wait until the bitter end when their employer downsizes them out of a job or sim

.

nightmare ending the dream of having a major say in defining our vocation is the same vocational vulnerability thaters from each other and forcing people to hold their pose as a productive loyal member of a work tem missing the e

dient of any team: mutual trust. For many college seniors and recent graduates, the fear of making a mistake in one

st at the paralysis stage. The older worker is also living with the fear that her job will be gone next week and age diher from finding anything in the same pay range. As one woman executive said to me, "career satisfaction doesn't p

n."

e midst of these tectonic shifts in power, in locus of control over career development, it is helpful to return to some

ly undervalued work done in the 1970's by William Perry and Lee Knefelkamp and their many colleagues. These re

ard and the University of Maryland synthesized a nine-stage psychosocial model of career development showing uswe each go through as we seek to experience ourselves as powerful and hopeful, as able to build a better vocationa

lves and others. I have added to their original insights my own experience of 25 years in the career counseling field

s a researcher. The resulting model speaks clearly to the fear and hysteria which is becoming more and more the da

ers in these last years of the 20th century.

e One: Absolute Reliance on External Authority



age One, we make two big assumptions: there is a Right Career for us and there is an Authority who will tell us wha

er is. The Authority looks at us and then looks into the celestial Platonic sphere of ideal careers and chooses the Rigellectual development this is analogous to the teacher looking at student tests, then looking up into the sphere of Tru

nswers Right or Wrong. There is no gray scale here - this is the realm of Absolute Reliance on Absolute Authority f

e absolutely Right Career.

ocus of control in finding that career and in growing our lives remains external and it will continue to be external u

ng as we are comfortable with the Stage One assumptions, nothing happens. We will not leave where we are unless

usions that what we are leaving is bad and there is hope of something better. In the same way that battered women er in which to build hope and experience freedom, we need to see that we can have a better future only when we mo

nt terrors in the workplace. What faces each of us as workers is our individual need to innovate continually our cap

big question in Stage One is whether we shall act at all. In addition to fear, laziness and complacency are major enem

mental adjustments to intolerable situations. It is safe and easy to let others define our lives for us. We are not culpa

re not responsible for how we are to use our gifts or even defining what those gifts are. Most of the difficult trials o

ng are easily avoided if others make our decisions for us.

eed to be clear that vocational growth is largely a pain driven process. That is to say, the only exit point from any s

ess we exhaust the illusions of a stage we are content to dwell in their grasp. If there is nothing to create cognitive t Stage One, the person simply will not grow.

ource of cognitive discomfort in Stage One, the thing that we discover about life in Stage One is the reality that carw static polarized definitions. They are dynamic human events and for most people there are multiple career alterna

n must make choices and set priorities based on an assessment of skills, interests, values, capabilities, and opportun

not become fully clear until Stage Seven but the outlines are clear enough in Stage One to get us moving into our o

dults who somehow managed to survive into adulthood with Stage One assumptions in place, there are fewer and feng to provide the kind of security and career development structure that people at this stage feel is necessary. Most c

o be an entrepreneur in managing your own career development. They want adaptable specialists who can move quo another as companies try to respond to rapid changes in the economy and in market demands. The information ex

orated inflexible expertise.

e realities are hard for us to grasp if we are in the grips of linear hierarchical dualistic thinking, and that is exactly th

ing that characterizes the first two stages or perhaps three stages of this model. Psychologists are learning that babie

d to imitate adults. In Stage One we want to imitate the adult doctor rather than be the adult doctor. We apprehend olly defined characteristics that tell us we are a "manager." If in fact we become a manager, we are going to be stiff,

ure, fragile. We become the decision-maker so frightened to ask a question that we risk incorrect decisions (which w

ecurity) rather than risk our shallow professional identity. Stage One worries about risking exposure as incompetentare multiplied a hundredfold by the fear of job loss.

e Two: Awareness of the Possibility of a "Wrong" Decision

key characteristics of Stages One and Two have to do with our inability to escape the tyranny, often benign tyranny

cially our parents, spouses, significant others, mentors, even professional helpers whom we see as the absolute Auth



ify for us the Right Career. Obviously if we are in the grips of the authorities in our lives, for instance, our parents o

s echoing down the distant corridors of memory, we are not in charge of our own lives. Stage Two embraces the po

with the aid of the absolute Authority, a mistake can be made.

e found that it is counterproductive to tell Stage One or Stage Two persons that they have to make a career choice.

ky is green. When we are in Stages One and Two, we have a perspective on life, a definition of truth which says theority in our life will define the correct career choice for us. We cannot do that for ourselves. This is not the place tol of pain is to hold on to that pain, however true that is. Rather we want here to begin to build trust in a process. A p

e rooted in understanding our past, ourselves, our abilities and motivators. A process which begins to explore and c

r genetic programming, our social situation, our complex self and all the baggage it carries.

ater stages of growth teach us that reality is obscured by needs and desires of our genetic programming. In a sense w

nd our genes to be truly ourselves. Evolutionary biologists, like E.O. Wilson make it clear that as far as the genes arare only a vehicle for their own survival, reproduction and further dissemination. Our genes are essentially indiffer

to raise our consciousness of their influence if we are not to be simply their slaves. Genetic determination of behav

w of the power of genetic programming. Knowing the genetic sources of our impulses, habits, predispositions, moti

quisite of our freedom. We are not the compulsory victims of our genetic influences despite what the Bell Shaped C

lso are not powerless victims of our culture, our social container. We can be counter-cultural in that we must learn tlization we have received. The saddest example I can think of to describe the disillusionment and betrayal that is of

ed from Eden designed and built by others, were the newly minted but jobless Ph.D.s and assistant professors denie

over the past 25 years who were socialized to teaching careers and then told that career did not exist anymore. Unfoadding to that number a whole generation of middle-level managers and engineers facing roughly the same obsoles

people today have experienced the disillusionment of Stage Two because parents or other relatives have been laid f a job and gone through subsequent agonizing reassessment.

age Two, whatever shatters our worldview is telling us that wrong choices are a possibility. Career counselors do no

, aptitude tests, horoscopes, IQs, the size and shape of our skull or our hands or our feet cannot tell us what to do. Wse, to risk, to invent our own future. We are involved in a project no smaller than creating our selves, living our live

and commitments we make and accept for ourselves. We are not perpetually submitted to genes, to society, to selfi

This is hard to accept and some people turn off the path here by saying that work is a curse, that you go to work forl reasons. In Stage Two we mistakenly perceive that our work is not, nor can it ever be, an expression of our selves

conomy is reinforcing Stage Two perceptions of reality and this often makes further growth difficult.

n I say that movement from Stage Two often arises from the broken pieces of a shattered worldview, I do not mean

t that. The breaking of our way of seeing things inflicts pain. At times we are in so much pain that we decide life is

to end life sometimes literally but more often figuratively by stopping our growth.

e Three: Substitution of Process as Authority

ne deals with the anger and disillusionment aroused by the discovery that career development is not as simple as one

is in identity. Is identity defined by external or internal means? Here we begin to shift our faith from the belief that

s to belief in the



decision making process which in turn will yield the Right Career. The Authority is now the process. The right pro

wed will yield the Right Career. This parallels a stage in our intellectual development where we believe that if we d

ework we will learn and more important, to us in this stage, we will get an A, or at least a B+.

Characterizes Stage Three is the continuing allegiance to the concept that one Right Career exists for me. I have m

ing an individual can tell me the Right Career, but I have not moved beyond thinking that there is, in fact, only on Re I can make. If I am to become my destiny, that is an active partner in the construction of the future, I have to see mnd one limited static definition of self in the world, a definition mediated by one Authority. From this point

ard in this passage of development, the authority becomes something like a primary care physician -- our personal g

hcare mazeway. We need the guide who helps us with self-assessment, skills identification, and what I call mazewads, what is available, job search advice.

k that moving out of Stage Three has been made more difficult because the society has shoved pre-professional carn into earlier and earlier stages of education. There was a cartoon in a recent New Yorker showing mother and child

of the principal of a preschool.

principal says: Yes, here at Dearborn we are always sensitive to those little signs that whisper "law" or "medicine."

e track of the Right Career too soon! By pushing the preprofessional track down into at least the middle-school, theke and everyone's panicky concern about some stumble or faltering soon are communicated to the child. This force

process so we do not make any mistakes.

review the players at this point. The person is still not involved as an activist in her own development. She is aware

e extent that she must follow the process, no one can do that for her. The good news is that she is at least on the yell

authority is now a process and not a person. Right Career as the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is still fully emugh weakening as we near stage four.

e Four: Awareness of Multiple "Good" Decisions

age Four, we begin to have inklings that multiple Right Careers, multiple good decisions, might exist and there is a n

ities for all the legitimate alternatives. The early stages have loosened the control of external Authority and enabledRight Career - the abandonment of the constructs Authority and Right Career now necessitates a decision maker.

of the discoveries of Stage Four is that the person might be involved in the process of her own career development. pted in part by an awareness of theatricality, of playing roles for others and never asking the question - where am I,

woman said, "I am a warrior at the office and I come home and I am still a warrior. I don't know who I am really." O

veries of Stage Four is that is that if we are willing to be a victim, there are our fears, our social conditioning and plare willing to exploit and oppress us.

age Four we begin to sense that we may be living on the reflections of ourselves in the eyes of others. Drowning ourity in the applause of others, applause for performing our role, for keeping our poses. One person said she felt like

er's monkey dancing for coins and the praise of her owner - craving praise insatiably. Highly successful women pro

nted to me that they are still struggling for acceptance, praise, visibility, membership in this profession.

need for priorities creates the foundation for the first big cognitive flip, the first big reorganization of the pattern of o

will author the list of priorities -me or the authorities I rely on in my life? Who is in control of my mind? Who is ex

use of my mimicry of my stereotype of a career, my lack of awareness that I am plagiarizing a life? Recent research



ges influenced the amounts of mentoring they received by initiating relationships with mentors. She who waits to b

Success of the mentoring relationship was influenced by one's internal locus of control, high self-monitoring, and h

ity. In other words, being a real self enhanced initiation into the status of a colleague.

very important that we understand the concept of cognitive flip. When you look at an Escher drawing and think abo

mind is trying to figure out if the stairs go up or down, if they originate here or end there. Your experience in lookind illusion is that your mind is organizing the perceptions that you have of that drawing. What you think you see chte to minute yet the data field remains constant. What is changing is the way your mind is organizing the data.

Eliot in The Four Quartets said that "We shall not cease from exploration /And the end of all our exploring/ Will bearted/And know the place for the first time."

gnitive flip is the seeing of some event we have seen before but seeing it new, seeing it differently, seeing it for the ptual psychology, researchers are always dreaming up new figure-ground pictures where if you look at the picture

hing and if you look at it another way you see something different. At times you almost sense a flip in your percept

e then another. Your mind is taking the same data set and making sense of it in two different ways and you can alm

ption flipping back and forth between the alternatives. In the same way that you can almost see your mind organiziof your perceptions when looking at an image, you can look back on your life story and see the ways your vocatio

flowing, growing, changing.

iplicity is sinister and suffocating for some at this stage. The far that the fight for identity is too ghastly happens to a

age Six but a few begin in Stage Four to feel the oppression of freedom. There are too many options. Paradoxically

nstructed so that when we are ostensibly most free, when we can do anything we want to, it is in that moment we arto act. For instance, if a person has in my grandmother's phrase "independent income" and does not have to submit

nd to earn a living, that does not make career-decision making any easier, perhaps only more difficult. We often wa

onment to prevent entropy. The certainties of fascism are always attractive to some for that reason. Psychologists tean attention is most focused and thinking is easiest in situations providing narrow boundaries and clear rules. Playin

at work offers just that framework for action.

e Five: Emergence of Self as Decision-Maker

e five is defined by your experience of the first big cognitive flip - the locus of control moves from outside of each oternal sense of self as the decision maker and the person responsible for the choices of life. We have finally worked

epts Authority and Right Career. We are the Authority and we have options.

gnitive development this is the most important act in the drama of development. Here we experience the reality that

ity is determined internally - using a kind of moral consciousness based on our decision and values clarification - an

r extent shaped externally by socially -defined roles into which we are forced but which are subject to our wills to a

an choose the kind of parent or doctor or lawyer or truck drive or teacher or researcher or craftsperson we want to b

arlier self as a person inside a row of mirrors with endless reflections and counter-reflections. Trying to be what we

ed by others, trying to please or placate other by making the right vocational choice.

in Stage Five we have finally accepted that we are in charge, this is our show, we have awakened to ourselves. Thi

arating, exploring, doing phase which begins with the recognition of multiple possibilities and ends with the need to



and clarification. We need to be clear about what needs to be done and we need to clear information and feedback

re doing it.

e Six: Awareness of the Chaos of Free Choice

goeth before the fall or so they say in Stage Six. All the alternatives now become a burden. In the beginning of Staiversity of alternatives was freeing and exhilarating but after a time they become chaotic and we enter the wastelan

follows somewhat the emotional pattern post divorce: first the anger and pain of betrayal and eviction, then the exh

om, then the burden of dating and the agony of singles bars, etc. ect. One client said she felt like she was a figure inonomous Bosch: so tortured that she wondered why she had acknowledged her identity and individuality becoming

with expressing herself vocationally. Another said he was shot dead in the duel between illusion and reality. That du

deadly given the barriers that exist between what we have and what we want. The discrepancy between what I desilly happening creates an inner tension. How I resolve that tension is the basic barometer of my maturity and my me

ambitions produce a certain amount of discontent. We learn that the easiest way to decrease the frequency of negat

tively moderate our expectations. On some days, that can mean we think about quitting on our hopes for a better fuhere are limits created by competition, demand, need, non-vocational responsibilities we have undertaken - family,

cat. We learn about luck and accident and illness. We learn that in most jobs we have to secure influence about aut

olleagues often act out of base and selfish motives. We learn that some people are predatory - vocationally, sexuallyearn that some people get bored and like to create trouble just to see what will happen regardless of the cost to us an

uctivity. We learn that we must continue to grow in our abilities and that growth usually arises from meeting new ch

enges and crises which promote growth are often painful.

of the great problems in Stage Six has troubled artists and social scientists from Dostoevsky to Carol Gilligan - we o

on to reality even though the illusions lead to tragic results. Our materialist society fosters all sorts of pleasant dreamon for reality - look at the millions who started smoking cigarettes because a phenomenally successful advertising c

ged to create a subconscious link between smoking and self-confidence.

e Six is the stage where some people turn off their path to languish in self-deception, in vocational entropy, in workiabits and addictions, working only to finance our acquisition and maintenance of servo-mechanisms and/or our sea

aration experience. The one with the most toys at the end of the game wins. In so doing we permit our lives and our

neled away by those who would drain our lives, or self-conscious intentionality, to meet their own interests. In an eoss, of sparse opportunity, the drive to generate security and invulnerability becomes almost manic. We cannot trad

rity for security. That is a core insight from almost every human religion.

urn off the path of growth we deny that we are a creative construction where we ourselves are the principal architec

re, as selves, never complete and finished. It is who you will be in the future that defines who you are now.

e Seven: Beginnings of Integration of Self and Career Role

age Seven we encounter the second cognitive flip-the end of the polarized career identity. The idea of choosing a tred role is abandoned in favor of seeing career as a form of self expression. In abandoning the idea of Right Career w

e idea of multiple Right Careers that enjoy a separate, distinct existence unconnected to us. Here the distinction betw

y gets smoky - even smokier than Stage Six but for different reasons. Can you disconnect the construct doctor from



ent of all the doctors in the world? I do mean play the games of logical positivism. Stage Seven flips our cognition o

ole we play.

age Seven we now realize we define the role. We are not choosing a polarized thing, we are looking at careers as ev

arities that are socially defined in the Dictionary of Occupational Title but within those regularities are enormous v

oms. We look at specific career opportunities as being expressions of our vocational self-understanding. The currensupporting a suppression of growth by giving the impression that to hold on to your job you have to play your role

fined by the people with the power to fire you. Students of success skills have long confirmed the value of role play

onfirm the value of being yourself on the job. Investing yourself in work that you genuinely enjoy gives you an edg

mooth sycophant survivor.

re responsible for our vocational actions which means we can control ourselves, and it means we can know ourselv

eelings. We are always living in light of our potential - we can be more, we will be more than we are now! It also mo not derive identity from career role or institutional affiliation. Rather it is the reverse, we use career as an express

ity.

age Seven we discover the core of our vocational freedom: we are more than what we do. What we do is but a smae. Vocation transcends job sequences and career ladders, which are usually illusory devices created by clever comp

ve us at least the sensation of movement upward through the organization.

e struggles of Stage Seven, we discover the courage of our personality - we exit the realm of perpetual transformatio

real commitment to our particular expressions of our vocational skills. Mysteries are always emerging in lives and

veled. Why did this happen? Why didn't this happen? But the mysteries of Stage Sever are truly profound. Slowly we and can be is part of not only our vocation but we stretch to see ourselves as part of everything that is. People wh

hysically self-evident world now have doubts. We are always losing sight of ourselves and our accomplishments. W

otebook into the labyrinth to remind us who we are.

y of the mid-career professionals I see at Radcliffe Career Services are asking question not about career change (althnting issue); they are asking about career identity, who they are as a doctor or a lawyer or a manager.

Stage -Seven caterpillar asks Alice in Wonderland? Who are YOU.

e Seven cognition requires that we gain some clarity about what we stand for, how we make meaning in our own unr vocation. When we have become the doctor who has never journeyed beyond Stage One or Two we wake up one

we have to perform these meaningless tasks for the rest of our lives. That wake-up call comes in our mid-career bec

never our choice - the Authority chose them for us - parent, spouse, advisor, whomever. The career and the self aree the level of sheer aptitude. Just because we can be a surgeon does not mean we should be a surgeon nor does it de

on we are. Career choice does not boil down to: "I did well on the MCAT, I wanted to help people and live well, m

r who seemed happy enough." That was a great formula for mid-life Stage Six cynicism: Life sucks and then you d

age Seven we see the unfolding of life's adventure and begin to realize that life is constructed by us out of our own

mitments to values, to people, to the kind of self we would be in the world, to our part in the unfolding complexity o

sition and exercise of certain skills consistent with all of the above. I was shocked that a whole generation of bankernment officials complacently chose to look the other way and allow the savings and loan crisis to occur. These are

ntegrated self and career. Who were just doing the job as they were socialized to do it, or in this case, not to do it, no

iary responsibility.



e Eight: Experiencing Commitment

age Eight, and I think to even enter Stage Eight, the consequences of commitments must be experienced; therefore

mitments had to have been made in Stage Seven. We learn that taking responsibility for the creation of the career mnsibility for undesired outcomes. We do not hide from them or repress them, we acknowledge them. We also beginrlessness, loneliness, fear, pain, rejection are part of life - we change what we can and work around what we canno

most of our intellectual history, humankind stored truth in myth, in song, in proverbs or cautionary tales, in legend. Th Campbell and his career advice to follow your bliss.

happens at Stage Eight is the realization that following your bliss is not always blissful and we can come into doubhas made a major contribution to education in this country but that contribution is not always in her view and is not

owledged by competitors who would like to exploit or oppress her by making her feel invisible - professionally dis-

der at her own success. Another friend wrote a book promptly remaindered in the first year of publication and whic

ading journal in her field as "not likely to receive any favorable review" from future experts in the field. That bookme one of the landmarks in the field, sadly after that person's death by suicide.

wing your bliss is not always blissful. Your professional identity can be challenged, defeated, crushed but in Stage ife becomes serene and enjoyable precisely when you have become detached from a professional identity defined b

sely when you have left selfish pleasure and personal success behind as self-defining goals. If you permit others to

ssional identity, you are their slave.

hologists teach us that the fear of death derives from our becoming too closely identified with the individual self. Th

e investing exclusively in differentiation of self without concern for integration with our family, our community, oufrightening it is to confront the dissolution of self. That is why so many religious traditions teach that you have to l

yourself.

professional self follows the same rules. The more we get invested in a particular definition of our self the easier it ia pin in our balloon. A Stage Eight actress said that before she had a family of her own she was devastated every ti

ng a family gave her something transcending herself as a source of stability and personal worth. If we have emancip

the control of others, the last enemy to conquer is our own self and its fear of nonexistence, invisibility, and incons

reasury of human knowledge now includes the understanding that reality is created as we try to comprehend it. (ita

enberg's uncertainty principle, which describes the logical impossibility of determining simultaneously both the posity of a given atomic particle, was only the first tremor in what has become a devastating earthquake for physical sc

e laureate in chemistry said, "What ever we call reality, it is revealed to us only through an active construction in wh

cipate." That is perhaps the great truth of Stage Eight. Careers are realities in which we actively participate - our cary apart from our participation. To make things even darker, the definition of that participation and that career are la

pt with hindsight. Present success is usually only accessible from the future. The attributes, artifacts, and accessorie

ss are fictions. Only you can judge your success and only from the perspective of your own future integrity. You ar

e when you rely on others to judge your success. Focus on the intrinsic meaning of the task not the reward attachedrmance of the task.

age Eight we learn that we must painstakingly match our preconceptions with actual, ongoing experience to begin s



reality. Yes you heard that right, not reality from illusion - we did that at earlier stages. Here we are distilling truth

reality. And the truth we distill form our experience is what guides our expansion of self-created career roles. We l

lves, our vocational power, our authenticity, our integrity, even, dare I say it, our sanctity.

e Nine: Expansion of Self-Created Roles

we build an awareness of seeking out the inevitable and cooperating with it. We have awareness of working with th

ning the limits of our self-created roles, learning the value of cooperation with others, learning that our working is a

ession limited only by the demands of justice, harmony, mutuality. Our center is now outside the control of those adm of rewards and opportunities in which we must participate. We are not owned by our career. We stake out where

ibute our unique constellation of skills and abilities and imagination and motivation and values. We truly focus on t

rds.

earn synchronicity (that is: we get what we need); we learn the magic of believing, going with the flow, the harmon

e not life's victims but life's creators. We let go of the fears of the earlier stages - fear of making the wrong decision

ed in the chaos of vocational indecision, fears not doing what we should do, fears of changing. We begin to love thelf we want to give to the world. Our unique qualities are not a problem but part of our gift. It is only when we trans

s that we can plunge in fearlessly to create our vocation from the raw stuff of the marketplace.

witch metaphors, we reach the top of the developmental mountain when we realize we have been in charge of our li

ave been responsible without knowing consciously our responsibility. In the end, if we successfully navigate this jo

ated from everything including our self. We are journeying into a better future, a future freed from determinism andncts, the weight of social tradition, the illusionary desires of the self, the oppression of being a wage slave. We are e

e with others a future that is compassionate, in tune with the reality that transcends our genetic needs and socially d

h of life is spent resolving paradoxes: taking control while letting go, getting ourselves out of our way (to use Gandh

ht), finding out-there the truth that is in-here. In our work, whatever work that may be, we are always moving towarnsibility for creating the work we do - for modifying and adapting and redefining the standard forms of employmen

ole in life is to recognize our options and, when we cannot see options, to create them. We identify the places wher

r for ourselves and then we foster that growth toward a more comprehensive vision of who we are in the world.

ajor problem at Stage Nine is that what is always has the edge on what might be. It is easier to settle for reality than

g, of accomplishing, of trying and achieving, is always within us and is very persistent in getting us to do things. It i

oy of transcending our own ego boundaries to experience our own growth in being and becoming part of somethinglves. When I say that I affirm the essential core of all mysticism - that the source of all meaning is a living presence

model of the growth process in career decision making is a model of the journey toward hope and life and vision. Tnot exempt us from the realities of our endowment, the realities of accidents, failures, betrayals, illness, luck. It doe

slipping on our doubts and falling from Stage Eight visions into Stage Six despond. But it does exempt us from the

ruct for ourselves - all the layers of fear that hold us back, all those voices saying to us that we cannot do what we b

g we cannot do what we know is consistent with our deepest wisest self.

ustain great losses resisting our growth. There are catastrophic costs attached to staying in one place developmental

rtant to understand that we are able to resist our own growth even though we do so at our own peril.

Mid Career satisfaction

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