Ep 148: Fulfillment and Balance at Midlife

It's about having the clarity , self-confidence and unstoppable belief to go after and get everything you want . If you'll come with me , I'll show you how Well . Hello , friends . I hope you had an amazing week . Today I want to talk about something that I think is going to resonate with you .

The reason I think that is because it builds off my episode number 106 , when I was talking about what to do if you're having a mid-career or a mid-life crisis . That episode quickly became one of the most popular on the podcast . Several of you have emailed me or DM'd me on Instagram and told me that you've listened to it many times . I get it Listen .

I am mid-career and mid-life . I understand what it is like . Because of a lot of your comments , I wanted to do something that built off of it and maybe took it a little bit deeper . In that episode I was talking about it from a life perspective .

Think about the societal programming we all have and about how that life checklist all the big things we're supposed to do in our life starts to run out at mid-life .

We check all those boxes and we get there and then we're like , well now what the truth is and that's what we talked about in episode number 106 , the rest of our life , for mid-life , mid-career on , is our choice . I feel like a lot of us don't proactively make that choice .

We stay where we are and just coast until the next big milestone , which is retirement , and then the next big milestone , which is , if you have children , becoming a grandparent I don't even have that one because I don't have any children Then death .

I guess I just don't think we look at the second part of our life in a way that is empowering and enables us to live a life of excitement and meaning all the way through . I actually think what we talked about in episode number 106 can change that perspective .

It's not necessarily easy to sit down with pen and paper and chart out what you want to do for the next 40 to 50 years in a big way , just like you're navigating a ship or whatever Steering it is necessary . Where are you headed ? Are you headed north or south ?

Then it's a fill that destination between here and the endpoint , with a lot of things that are meaningful to you . It takes some time to figure that out . If you haven't listened to that episode yet , I do encourage you to go back and listen to episode number 106 . This episode is going to take that a little bit deeper .

We're going to talk about why sometimes it can be hard to find meaning in a career . This episode is going to offer up four ways that the day-to-day , or our perspective about the day-to-day , gets in the way of feeling good about where we're at . This applies , by the way , not only to your career but also to the rest of your life .

We're going to talk today about how do you find meaning in mid-career or mid-life . Let's go ahead and dive in .

I'm going to give you four of what I think are the macro ways that the day-to-day and our perspectives about that can get in the way of feeling really good about where we're at , or about how we spend our time or about how life has led you to this point and what that all means .

I think the things I'm going to talk about here can be a source of dissatisfaction in a lot of our lives In many cases , as you'll see as we walk through . I do feel that it can be as simple as a change in perspective , meaning what we think . Something means how we feel about something is largely a choice . It's not a hard and fast rule .

We can decide how we feel about something . So I want to talk about four things . The first one is it's easy to have a sense of futility in our work .

Basically , it means sometimes , especially as we move up the ladder , our time can become less and less about the path that we chose , right , the thing that we like to do like in my case , that would be brand , brand strategy , brand marketing , whatever and it can become much more about solving what I would call the important but more trivial or , probably better

stated , less sexy parts of our job dealing with the politics of a place , mediating conflicts across teams , across people , spending all of your time figuring out how to not only come up with that big idea and lead your team in that . That's the sexy part . The unsexy part is figuring out the sequencing , and the bigger the organization is , the more complex .

This one is the sequencing of how you sell that idea in . There's usually , in most organizations , an order that needs to go in and you have to check those boxes with those senior level execs in the right order , in the right way .

And when you're the figurehead or midlife , you can usually find yourself leading a team or a functional area or an organization or whatever . Yeah , it usually falls to you to like , figure out and do all of those unsexy things . We can spend a lot of time fixing the things that are broken processes , things that aren't working .

You know , relationships that aren't working . It's not necessarily fun when our days are overloaded with those things . After all , that's not the choice we made , right ? We didn't go to college to do those things . We didn't pick brand or brand marketing versus finance or whatever choice we made in our functional area .

We didn't do that so that we could deal with all this minutiae and dysfunction , right . But when you're the one that's worked your way up the ladder and everyone's looking to you and things have to be done , you're the one usually that ends up with a disproportionate amount of fix it things on your plate , right ?

And while sometimes , like those things can be , you know , gratifying , it can be gratifying to repair a relationship between two organizations so things actually are functional instead of dysfunctional . It can be gratifying to fix a process and you start to see the work flowing through more quickly and smoothly .

It can be gratifying to successfully sell in the project through all those little hurdles you had to jump over , all those senior execs . The fact that you did it in the right order , you did it in the right way , like that's gratifying .

I'm not saying it's not , but sometimes like you can step back and look at the way you're spending your time on the day to day and , depending on what's going on , you can look at it and say , good Lord , like I am spending all of my time like as the handyman around here or handywoman or whatever it's like all I do is take out my little set of tools and

tinker until I get this little dysfunction fixed and then , as soon as I fix that little dysfunction , there's another little dysfunction that needs to be fixed . Right , it can feel like this never ending stream of things that have to be tinkered with and fixed and that's not a great feeling . I don't think Some people , I think I do .

Actually , it's interesting because I do enjoy solving problems . I kind of like having problems at work and I sort of like solving them , but I like them to be of a certain nature . I do not . I like fixing problems in the market .

I like for a company to have a challenge with their well , I don't like it , but I like to fix challenges with positioning , or an ad campaign , or a messaging strategy , or after a merger , like how do you blend two brands ? Like I like doing that . That is my version of the problem I like to fix . I do not like spending 100% of my time .

I do not like spending 100% of my time dealing with the tiny little dysfunctions that actually have to be fixed for all of the work to flow smoothly . Right , those little things have left unaddressed and , by the way , I have worked for many people that do not address all of the tiny minutiae of problems . They ignore them .

That's not helpful either , so I'm not saying walk away and let someone else do it . Like I am a big believer in getting in there , like dealing with the processes , get in there and mix it up and fix it .

What I am saying , though , is that you need to kind of understand that , if you feel , if you find yourself doing that a lot and you find yourself thinking a lot about the pointlessness of the things that make up your workday . I want you to do a couple of things .

I want you to first congratulate yourself that you are not ignoring the small but I don't want to say small , but Less exciting , let's call it but very important things that have to be addressed . I think a leader gets in there and they don't ignore stuff , they don't pretend it's not happening , they don't tell their teams they're imagining things whatever .

They see the problems in the business and they take ownership for getting in there and fixing it . So I think that's very important in leadership . I think your people know whether you're the leader that is making life better for them or you're the leader that's telling them there's actually not a problem , when we all know there is right .

So I'm not saying ignore it .

What I'm saying is if those things don't fill you with a sense of meaning and I'm guessing like occasionally they might , because it does feel good to solve a problem , but if that makes up a higher percentage of your life , your work life , than you would like , it's probably it feels a little bit like a boat anchor , I'm guessing .

So I think there's a couple things you need to do . You need to first see the value in those things and understand that part of moving up the ladder is not just about making a bigger impact in the area that you love . That is part of it , but part of it is solving the daily pain for your team or your organization .

You know , doing the sort of invisible steering of the ship that makes sure that , if you want it to point in head north , that that is where you're headed . If you're not steering that ship and doing all of the minutiae that it takes to do that , no one is right . Your people can't do it . You have to do it right , and so I think it's about perspective .

It's about valuing those things and feeling good that you're the kind of leader who spends their time doing those things , and , believe me , your team appreciates it if you're doing that .

I think the next thing , though , is for you personally is not just seeing it and valuing it and saying , oh , it's good that I'm doing that , because that's an important part of my leadership , part of my job .

I think you need to also look for ways that are important to you that you can insert more meaning into your workday , work week right , and that looks different for every one of us , so for you it might be if you have a family like in children and things like that and a demanding job , it might be trying to make sure that the balance of how you spend your

time , that there's clean separation where you can get it and as often as you can get it , so that you can be present at work and present at home . Sometimes that helps you find a bit more meaning .

It's like , well , yeah , work is challenging and sometimes I'm doing a bunch of things I don't care about , but it pays for this life and these people and I'm spending time with my people and if you can find more of that , sometimes that's enough .

For those of you like me that don't have any children , that obviously is not your go-to , but what does fill you with meaning ? It might be a hobby . For me , it's this business , right , standing up . This business has allowed me to take the parts of my job around leadership and sharing perspectives and mentoring and expanding that to a global scale .

So for me , the time that I spend outside of my corporate job doing this is time that feeds me . When I take a day off from work , a lot of times it's because I'm working on building content for my business .

I might be doing that in San Diego or in New York or some other place that I want to visit , but that is usually part of the day because , for me , it

feeds me , right . So know what that is . Is it a hobby ? Is it a person ? Is it a ? You know , what is it that you can purposefully make time for in your life , in the context of your work week ? How do you counterbalance the trivial and sometimes futile things that we have to do as mid-career leaders with the things that feed you , right ?

So that's number one making sure that you're finding meaning in your everyday . Number two is also like how do we look at our daily job , right ? So , aside from you , know the non-sexy problems we have to solve . That we talked about number one .

Number two , I think , is important , and this , I think , is important for people at any stage of their career or their life . Even , like , if you're looking at a person that doesn't work outside the home , this is important too .

Like , do you focus on what I would call the episodic tasks that you have to do , so the projects that you start and stop , the things that have an end date , the things that you know you know you need to do and you want to do versus what I would call the continuity streams . Here's a really trivial example , but I think it drives home the point .

Like , if you just bought a new house which I did as you notice , I change houses the way some people change shoes Like it's crazy , like I need to be a house flipper , I think , because I'm into , like , decorating . So what I'm about to say is kind of what I'm experiencing right now . So I moved into a house that was all white walls .

So you know , one of the things I'd like to do is decorate , revamp , renovate a little bit and then flip right , it's my thing . However , I can look at that in two ways . I can be focused on painting the room and the thing that I have to do this weekend , right ?

Or I can be thinking about the continuity stream of what the house is going to be when it's at its end state right , either me enjoying that or me in a year and a half deciding that someone else , it's time for someone else to enjoy that . So I can move on to my next project , right ? That's what I mean by where are you focusing all of your attention ?

Is it on the start and stop projects , the things with the defined end date , or are you tying that thing to what I call a continuity stream , a higher purpose , right ?

So I believe that if our work and , by the way , it's super easy to do so , like I'm in marketing , and there is a never ending stream of projects to do in marketing , right , some of them are about fixing things , some of them are about introducing new things , like you know , and then all of the tasks that it takes to make all of that happen are just a

endless list of tasks that have to be done . Some of them are bigger , meatier portions of the task and some of them are tiny , but it all has to get done .

So do you look at that and see the start and stop tasks and it just feels exhausting and never ending , because right behind that is another thing , another list of things you have to do , right , it just never stops in most careers .

Or are you allowing yourself to tie all of that start and stop activity to something more meaningful , like making an impact on the business or becoming really amazingly talented and an expert in your functional area ?

Like , I think there's two ways to look at how we spend our time , and that's 100% our choice , because that's how we choose to think about the way we spend our time in our career , and I personally believe that when we don't look for the higher meaning of the , I guess , set of tasks that we have to do every day , when we just focus at the task level , I

think it seems exhausting and futile . Like I like being busy , I like doing a lot of things at once , I like all of that . But it can seem like , oh my goodness , like if I have to do this XYZ thing one more time , my head's gonna pop off right Versus .

If you step back and you kind of look at , what does all of that add up to for you , that means something to you . Like I'm someone who really , who really has loved the functional area that I chose . Right , I love it . I read about it in my free time , I study it . I like doing it because I truly believe it's not just the tasks that I love .

I 100% believe that one of the most important assets to a business is an incredibly meaningful and well-managed brand that the customer is emotionally connected to . I 100% believe that . So for me , I really believe that one of the reasons why I've found such meaning in my career is because of that perspective , I do not see it .

As you know , research project number 552 , right , I see it as another problem to be solved , a new era company needs to enter into in this area , and that I'm the lucky person who gets to help figure that out . That's two different perspectives .

And when you look at it as research project number 552 , it seems exhausting and uninteresting and like maybe you need to go back to college and become a you know , psychologist or something like it seems like it's time for a change . Right , I'm done doing this .

But if you see the meaning and you tie it to a higher purpose , which for me is not only that I really love the creativity of what brand is , but I love and I 100% believe in the impact of that work on the health and the vitality of a business , that is why I believe I have found the meaning that I've found throughout my career , like I my mom used to

say to me , like she'd never really knew anyone who loved what they did so much . And I believe that's why Because even when I was really junior , just figuring out what it meant to do that functional area , I just I looked at my bosses like back in the , you know , mid 90s . I was just starting my career and I started it , a wireless company .

It was called Sprint PCS back in the day , but now it's part of T-Mobile . Like that was a ride . Like they were the fastest brand at that time around the turn of the century , around 2000 . They were the fastest brand to go from zero to a $10 billion market cap .

Now I'm sure that's not the case now with all these unicorns and stuff like that , but at the time they were . So it tells you what that was like . It was hyper growth . It was insane .

And the people that I worked for and with that were in charge in that company came from , you know , some of the you know most prestigious CPG brands and just advertising agencies and things . They were just , I thought , brilliant and for me , like going to work every day .

At that stage in my career I wasn't the one in charge and I wasn't the one doing all the big , sexy things . I was the one you know tinkering with the rock and the little chisel , like doing the little , little tiny things that they would toss my way . But I watched them and I thought , my goodness , like that was inspiring for me , right .

So there's always a way , no matter where you're at in your career , to find your inspiration to tie , like what you're doing and what you're learning , and the components of your day , to something higher that serves you , that serves the brand that you know in some way makes a difference .

And finding that perspective is up to you , and deciding whether you want to focus on the meaninglessness of the individual task you're working on or whether , instead , you want to tie that quote unquote meaningless task to something that really matters to you and choosing to believe that that tiny little task is part of something that's going to make a tremendous impact

. That's your choice . You get to decide what things mean and you get to decide how to think about the things that you do every day .

And I truly believe and would strongly encourage you , if you're doing it , to shift your focus from thinking of the what I would call episodic tasks , the things that start and finish , the things that seem trivial and small , the things that you've done a thousand times .

Stop focusing on those and instead tie those to something more meaningful , what I would call the continuity streams , like what does it all add up to ?

And allow yourself to see that , because I do think , when we see ourselves as an ingredient an important ingredient , I might add the basil on top of the pasta it's like we're the ones that can see ourselves as a pivotal player , no matter how small and today you might feel ridiculous a task you have to do .

So it's all how you choose to look at it , and that , too , can allow you to bring more inspiration , more passion , more excitement , more energy , not only to the work , so that it's as excellent as it could be , but to your daily life , to the people that you interact with , to your family , right and friends .

So number two is how you choose to look at your daily job can either add meaning or not . Number three and this is a big one too is how we choose to think about the path not taken . So sometimes we can really admit life , be focused on the paths we didn't take and convincing ourselves that the grass was much greener on that other path .

And the path that we're on is full of weeds and tall brush and we can't see our way ahead because of all of the tangle of growth and jungle type plants and things getting in our way and it just feels like the path we're on is just a ridiculous path . Right ? That is really important and I have done a couple of episodes on regret .

I would encourage you to go back and listen to it . We go more into it than I'm going to do here , but I do have a few things I want to talk about related to regret .

But if you go back to episode 101 , that is moving past regrets I went pretty deep into it and I'm not going to go as deep today , but if you're interested in that , I encourage you to go back and listen to episode 101 on moving past regret .

I think that has a lot of interesting perspectives that you might find valuable if you find yourself stuck here on continually ruminating over the path not taken . One of the things that happens to us in mid-career is that our life leading up to that point so for our mid-40s anywhere from 39 to 54 , I consider it to be mid-career , mid-life .

For some it can start earlier , for some it can stretch longer . But that is the spot where we look up and we think , hmm , how did I get here ?

And the natural thing , because looking ahead at the blank slate can feel scary and intimidating because we don't know what's ahead of us right , we look back and we look at all of the different choices that we made and this is very true for not only our career or our work life , but also for our personal life , like the person we chose or didn't choose .

Do we have children or not ? Which functional area do we choose ? Do we go to law school or not ? Do we , you know , all of the different things that we said yes and no to .

I think we reach kind of a critical mass at mid-life , and all of those choices yes , no , yes , no has led us here , and I believe that , no matter how successful you are , how unhappy or happy you are with the life that you've built , I think 90% of us , I truly believe , look back and regret or wonder about the path not taken .

And I , like I said , go back and listen to episode 101 , because we talk a lot about it , more so than what I'm going to talk about here . But I just want to say one thing about that . I get it , I . There's some . At some point I'll do some episodes on some of going deeper , on some of my own things .

But you know , for a long time I was the queen of regret and yet I have a lot to be grateful for you know , I came from more of a blue collar family and , you know , through a series of choices that I made my younger self made I finished my degree , I did well in school and I built the career that I wanted .

Even with all of that , and I'm very blessed with the income that I've made and I've moved to 14 different cities and the number of amazing people that I've met . Like all of the stuff , it's been a very rich , probably unexpected , life . It certainly wasn't the life I thought I would have in a good way .

Right , I have a lot more options than I thought I would have and all of that . And I feel like in many ways I've actualized a lot of the things I wanted to do in corporate and now I'm preparing to do that as an entrepreneur . So there's nothing to complain about really .

But there's things right for all of us and I'll do some episodes on that down the road . But what I want to say here is very simple . I think regret is something that can steal our joy and I think if we're not careful we can put too much emphasis on it .

It's very easy to romance the road not taken and to overlook the fact that that might have been not a great road right . We never look back and think that . Well , sometimes we do . I guess we look back and think , oh , I'm glad I didn't do that .

But I think we give more weight to when we look back and think why didn't I do that , or why didn't I say yes to that ? Or like I do think sometimes we're grateful for the choice we made .

But I think a lot of times we sort of torture ourselves with the whys of why we didn't do that or why we said no to that or that kind of thing , and for that I think it's very simple .

I think you have to shift your perspective and you have to find ways that are feel true to you , to value the choices that led you here , even if here , this moment in time , is not everything you want it to be . There's value there if you allow yourself to see it , and I think we don't do that often enough .

You know , like , even if you're in a relationship you don't really want to be in , what are you learning ? Like you couldn't shift one of the great ways to give you you know a part of these tech layoffs and you find yourself without a job , even though you're a super high performer , I would tell you like it's not . That's just a point in time .

It's not going to stay that way . You will find another amazing job probably very quick , because the market's very hot .

But how you look at it and the meaning that you take from it and allowing yourself to see even if it's a bit of a financial struggle right now , taking a moment in your career to take a breath and to ask yourself if a course correction might make you happier in the future , like now is the time . This is a calibration time , right ?

Same thing if you're in a relationship you don't really want to be in , okay , what is there to learn from that ? Why don't you want to be in that relationship or where you are in some way ? What is there for you to learn from that and how can you use that to move you forward ?

So there are things to value , even if you find yourself in a place that isn't everything you want it to be , because maybe it was for a while . It just may not be now . Learn from that , right ?

So , instead of looking back and thinking , oh dear Lord , like if I should never should have chosen this thing , or I never should have made this series of choices that led me here .

I would challenge that and just say what did you learn by going on that path and what are all of those lessons and how can they be used to calibrate your path ahead , adjust , pick new things , pick different things , use it to know more about who you are and what you want and let that chart your path ahead instead of ruminating over regret for the path not

taken . And then the last one is one that happens , I think , to many of us at mid-career , and that is we can lose meaning at mid-career when our career becomes all consuming right , and that is a very easy thing to happen . It's very easy to not put up boundaries and to allow your climb up the ladder to mean you have less and less time .

It takes all the oxygen basically out of your life and it's on us to carve out those boundaries . And it's hard . I mean I feel like I'm someone who for years did not have any boundaries .

A lot of times , like when you're a high performer , you've got a bigger job and a bigger organization and the scope continues to expand , it just means that there's less time for you to have your own life . And what I have learned in the last handful of years . It took me a while because I do love what I do , so that can be a very insidious thing .

When you love what you do , you don't mind when it takes up more and more your oxygen until finally you get to one day and you think wait a minute , it's all 100% about work . I'm living to work , I'm not working to live .

And I had to step back and find a healthy balance and for me that was something that gradually shifted over time and it also was because a new passion emerged from me , which is this business , and I would say that it's different for me . So it's not like I am a workaholic and it was all about my brand career . Now it's all about my business .

It isn't that . It's more about the impact that I wanted to have and the kind of life that I plan to have two , three , five years down the line . It's the pathway to that and even with that , even though I've still got my demanding corporate job and I have this business , I'm between the two , not working any more hours than I used to Like .

There was a time when my corporate job took 70 , 80 hours , like you know , back in the day when I was married , like I remember , walking through he was a sales person , he won some kind of incentive trip and it was to Disney , all his Disney world .

Like obviously we didn't have any children , but , and I remember we were at Animal Kingdom and my phone , my cell phone was ringing off the hook and I was on conference call after conference call while browsing past the little animal habitats .

I mean I just was like sometimes I look back on that and I think , my goodness , like , get some discipline here , like so I don't do that anymore . Right , that's not me anymore , but it was me .

And I would say , on that one , if that's a habitual habit for you , is it just that you need to set healthy boundaries , because it could be that , or is it something much deeper ? And here what I'm talking about is or is there some form of imposter syndrome there that's causing you , compelling you to over function ?

I'm going to be doing a whole series on imposter syndrome starting next week and we're going to look at the five types . It's going to be a multi part series and , given the number of clients I have that have this and I had it most of my career I think it's a very important thing to talk about .

It can steal your life , your happiness and your well being , because the things that you tell yourself will cause you to over function and overwork and believe that nothing you do is ever good enough , and I think it's a really important thing to talk about .

So , if your career is all consuming , I think you need to do some inner work and ask yourself do I just not know how to set boundaries ? Because it could be that that's a pretty easy thing to shift Just set the boundary and live with it .

But if you feel that compelling need to continue to work and continue to work and continue to work , even though you promise yourself you won't do it , there's something underneath that and I would encourage you to take a look at it .

And if that's the case , join me next week and for the next several weeks , because we're going to talk about imposter syndrome and that's probably what's behind it . Because what's behind imposter syndrome is this feeling of I'm not good enough and therefore I need to do this and this and this and this and this .

So we'll go much deeper , because there's lots of different types and a lot of different ways that it shows up , and I think it's going to be interesting . So you know , ask yourself if it's a simple setting as a healthy boundary or if there's something deeper there .

And if there's something deeper there , join me next week , because we need to reset how you think about yourself so that you can set down the imposter syndrome and really step in to all of the healthy fulfillment you want to have in your life . So really quick , here are the four things . Again that we have a sense of futility in our work .

So we're focusing on all the little petty fires and crap that we have to deal with instead of the difference that we're making . We're not tying that to a higher purpose . That's number one . Number two is how we look at our daily job . So are you thinking of it as a never-ending series of episodic , non-meaningful tasks or are you tying it to a higher purpose ?

Because when you do that , everything shifts . Number three we're ruminating with regret over the path not taken instead of seeing the value of where we're at and the choices that led us here and the possibilities that creates for our future .

And then , number four when work is all consuming and it's important that you take a look at that and understand if it's just about boundary setting easier to do but still very important or if there's something deeper driving you right Around , I'm not good enough .

So that is what I have to say about some ways that our perspectives can get in the way of us finding meaning at mid-career and how to shift that . I hope you found the episode helpful . Once again , thank you for joining . If you want to follow me on Instagram , we're going to be talking about meaning at mid-career throughout the weekend .

I'd love to know what you think , and with that I'll leave you until next time . Make it a great week . My friends . Do you have a life coach ? If not , I'd be so honored to be your coach . I've created a virtual coaching program and monthly membership called Next Level . Inside , we take the material you hear on this podcast , study it and then apply it .

Join me at thepurposefulcareercom backslash next level . Don't forget the purposefulcareercom backslash next level . Join me and together we'll make your career and life everything you dream of . We'll see you there .