What Is A Career Crisis? And How Can You Heal From It?
There has been a lot of talk lately about the “great millennial career crisis.” If you’re not familiar, it refers to the fact that many millennials (and I would argue this spans all generations of adults), feel let down by their careers. The narrative we were fed was this: Get a good education, and you will be rewarded with fulfilling, gainful employment. Instead, what we got was an unsteady job market, salaries that don’t keep up with inflation, and jobs that make you want to poke your eyeballs out. Oh, and we also got mass layoffs, AI, massive student loans, and well, everything else happening in the world.
On an individual level, a career crisis can be anything from being fired abruptly, to a pit in your stomach driving to work every morning, to years of existential dread that compound into a mental or physical breakdown. A career crisis can be devastating and not just because of the loss of income. It’s also devastating because it pokes at the core of our most basic human needs and instincts: Survival, belonging, identity, and a sense of purpose. All of that gets wrapped up into our jobs. And when that job doesn’t pan out the way we hoped it would, it can create a crushing emotional domino effect.
The good news is that a career crisis, while hard, is also an amazing opportunity. If we let it, it provides us the space, time, and motivation to heal. Let me explain…
Work can be a great source of growth, fulfillment, and purpose. It can also be a great source of stress, emotional erosion, and distraction from self. When we mask our true identity every day in the name of professionalism, and ignore the signs and signals from our bodies in the name of productivity and deadlines, we rob ourselves of so much: The opportunity to be truly present in life, the chance to know ourself as a whole, dynamic person, the space to feel our feelings and express our creativity. In this way, work can become a source of self-abandonment through our tiny, daily actions and choices.
And sometimes, the universe responds to years and years of missing these opportunities by intervening. Our response to this intervention is a choice: We can take the opportunity to move through it, to feel it all, to sit with ourself and to come out the other side with a new, more lovely set of values and priorities, or we can bypass all of that, move as quickly as possible into something else, and risk repeating the cycle all over again. And it truly is a free choice. It just leads to two, very different places.
So the question then becomes, how do we heal from a career crisis? Should you choose to do so, here are some steps to consider taking:
Know that it will take time. To the best of your ability, give that to yourself. Of course, take care of the basics and make sure you have what you need. If that means getting a bridge job in the meantime, do that. But if you’re able, give yourself some distance from the career that led to the crisis you're healing from.
Unpack the aspects of your identity that are wrapped up in this. What are you afraid of being seen as? Or not being seen as? And is that genuinely who you are? Look for aspects of yourself that you felt you weren’t able to express in your career and see if you can invite them back online.
Follow your curiosity. Do things for the sake of interest or enjoyment rather than productivity. Learn to sew, or make pottery, or join a choir. Notice what comes alive in you. This is important information for the next step.
Invest in yourself. Time, money, energy. What is alive in you is an incredibly valuable clue about what you are here to do, and about how you are here to do it. This is part of the healing. Making this a priority allows the other, more practical aspects to fall in line.
Most importantly, feel your feelings. And to the best of your ability, don’t do this alone. Share with your people, be in community, talk to others who are, or have been on a similar journey.
Know that if you give yourself the gift of sitting with yourself, and being curious, and noticing what arises, and feeling all of your feelings, even (especially) the hard ones, that you will be rewarded. And when you look back at this time, you will say “I’m so grateful that happened to me, because if it hadn’t, I would still be where I was, instead of where I am now. Thank goodness for that.”
And, if you're going through something similar and seeking support, please do get in touch. There are many ways I support people with different budgets and timelines. Please feel free to email me at alex@alexrizzicoaching.com or book a free call with me here.
Alex Rizzi (MSEd) is an integrative career coach for sensitive souls and a graduate student in counseling and psychotherapy. Drawing on modalities including hypnotherapy, CBT, parts work, and somatic tools, she helps people heal and thrive after a career crisis.