Ahh, the quarter-life crisis.
When living in the present moment and staying attuned to yourself, it’s hard for young adults to avoid the bigger questions in life that can rattle our foundations, like what am I doing and will it get any better?
Before you do something rash like quitting a job, marrying the person who is totally wrong for you, moving back home, or dumping your possessions with an extreme Marie Kondo zeal, take a breath and borrow a page from that celebrated queen of organization: Tidy your life by category.
One of the main categories often tied to fulfillment is work.
Maybe you want a promotion. Maybe you want to jump to a different field. Maybe your entrepreneurial spirit is nagging you to put your side hustle first. Whatever it is, here are 10 things you can do to help remove the career questions from that life crisis.
- Roadmap. Having a plan can help. It doesn’t have to be crystal clear, but making yourself define what you want, articulating a goal, and mapping out a timeline for when you want to realize your goal can help you have a direction to head toward. Think of it as a vision board for your career, imagining all the things you want to try and eventually accomplish. So if the journey starts with a step, your plan will point you toward a path.
- Be Prepared. Sherpas can make a climber successful, so having a guide helps. Lehigh’s Center for Career and Professional Development has created a few guides to assist young alumni when considering things like job searches, returning to graduate school, interviewing well, and negotiating a salary. So rather than rely on a hasty Google search, get information on how to best approach your goal from experts who care about your continued success. Or check out the Hire Lehigh blog for trends, tips, and tools related to career development from all different angles and written by a variety of people–coaches, students, employers, and alumni.
- Plug In. When you have a community of people in your corner, making pivots in life can be easier. Of course, your family and friends are cheering you on. But there are others in your corner too! Eh-hem, Lehigh’s alumni! So go to an alumni event in your area or connect with others at an affinity program or professional alliance. It often helps to meet folks who are beyond your circle but share those same pride points, like a love of brown and white. If you want to do that virtually, then join Lehigh Connects, an exclusive online platform to network with alumni and friends of the university. It’s like LinkedIn for Mountain Hawks.
- Stretch. So alumni networks aren’t where you want to play. OK, loner. Your task now is to push outside your comfort zone. Go to places and events where you can rub elbows with the folks who have the knowledge base and connections that will help you advance toward that goal. Look up professional societies in your area or join a few groups on MeetUp and stretch your boundaries.
- Listen. Moving forward in new directions requires a healthy dose of honesty. So grab that performance evaluation and re-read it. What does it say and what does it infer? Ask for feedback and advice from your friends, trusted colleagues, and willing supervisors. People generally want to see you succeed. Asking them for candid feedback can help you better learn how to leverage your strengths, shore up your weaknesses, and recognize your opportunities.
- Mentor. Find one. It isn’t easy. The person needs to be available to you, Yoda-style, hanging on your back, honing your abilities, challenging you, and, at your most-needed time, appearing across the void. Such work demands time in ways many find hard to commit to offering, so picking the right person and ensuring you are the right mentee is crucial.
- Volunteer. You didn’t get that first job without some blood, sweat, and tears through an internship or shadowing, so why wouldn’t your new goal demand the same? It will. It will just be harder to fit into your schedule. But find people to shadow and places to lend your services. You could even help at your alma mater! The goal is to build your chops by doing what you seek to do or hanging with those who do it.
- Coach. Working with a career coach can help in many ways, and Lehigh can help get that ball rolling. While a coach is not a golden ticket, their assistance can be very helpful with career moves and creating a plan.
- Advanced Degree. Classes and assignments can be fun – think back to your days on South Mountain! Going back for a degree or pursuing a graduate degree can provide structure and stepping stones for advancement. Many programs, including MBAs at Lehigh, are virtual and can fit your schedule as long as you have the commitment, motivation, and discipline to earn that paper.
- Trust Yourself. This is the biggest one. Know what you want and believe that you will get there. It may take longer and be harder than you had hoped, but such is the nature of seeking the improvements and advancements that will shape the years ahead of you … until that mid-life crisis hits. But that can be more easily fixed with a tiny red sports car.