Boosting up a stunned career — Your next steps to break mid-career crisis

Have you experience the mid-career crisis where you have felt that there is nothing more to learn or nothing more to achieve or you are already enough paid compared to your current skills, which kills your motivation to go to your desk daily and you almost feel like your work life has become stagnant.

Although this might not be bad state to be in for many people, but for someone it feels like hell.

Here are the few things I suggest based on my experience:

Impossible Dreams

Someone you have to make a long distance dream on which you yourself will laugh. Something like dreaming about being a CTO while you are still learning your java, or being a team manager while you feel your communication skills are zero.

Then you think about what is your motivation with this, may be you want to earn more money or you want to earn some respect or you just want to make an impact.

You must take baby steps to achieve this, like attending a udemy session, talking to someone who has achieved this or you start looking what people above you are doing are doing good or bad, so you can learn fast from their experience.

Although it sounds very theoretical, I have experienced confidence in just 10 days, once you start looking at other places except your computer.

Having a mentor or a similar minded friend

It’s important to talk no matter how introvert you are, ask people to give you feedback about your work or ask them to join you when you start a new stint.

Having a guide or someone to share about your experience is good.

Start presenting about what you learnt new, so you get more confidence on your skills.

There can be people on internet on which you can look up to, you must see what best of your field are doing, even if you achieve 30% of their knowledge it’s a massive improvement.

On the same time, don’t continue with a guide or friend, who can’t dream and also discourage you.

Good Professional Presence

Create a good linkedin profile, post about your complete courses and skill badges without shying away, no one will search themselves about you unless you showcase you. I have seen improvement of 300% in 6 months on my linkedin searches.

Don’t be lazy while putting about your current work, elaborate about it, list of the tools you use, check what other skills people are posting about in your current domain.

Don’t undervalue yourself

You can easily dream about 100% or 200% hike for your next job(Don’t go by any standard formulas which multiple with years of experience), Experience are obsolete if you are up to date with new changes. Try searching on internet about all the latest stuff and be early to learn them.

Don’t settle for mere hikes just because you feel tired in your current job, stay in your current role unless you actually find considerable success in your next interview.

Also don’t get discouraged after first interview, interviews will give you broader perspective about the things you must focus. After each interview you get more confidence.

You get more confident while salary discussion if you feel you have something that others doesn’t have, you must feel like world best person for the job while interviewing just don’t be arrogant.

Don’t undervalue yourself, even if you are starting after a break, world is your playground and there are enough players who respect a skilled person and just don’t compare you for your previous salary or career break.

Be International

Your skillset or soft skills shouldn’t be limited by what you see around when there is internet. You can learn about better practices which you can apply to your current job.

You can start a side project which will give you the necessary boost in terms of experience, you can’t limit yourself with your day to day work. Reading a medium article can be a good habit or a tutorial video on youtube. Then don’t shy away from applying to your daily work, you will cross other people soon who aren’t doing the same.

Conclusion

In the end it comes to how much you value yourself and what you want to achieve, if you just want to have a laid back that is also a choice, but if you want to achieve more and be the best than hard work and mental strength is the key