Riding Out My Mid-Career Crisis: A (Mostly) True Story

Hitting the Wall: Is This All There Is?

Okay, so, mid-career crisis. It sounds so dramatic, right? Like something out of a movie where someone buys a sports car they can’t afford and starts dating their personal trainer. My experience was… less glamorous. More like staring blankly at spreadsheets for eight hours a day and wondering, “Is this *it*?”

For years, I’d been climbing the corporate ladder, diligently putting in the hours, sacrificing weekends, and generally being the “good employee.” And then, somewhere around my late thirties, it just… stopped being fulfilling. The promotions didn’t excite me. The raises felt… hollow. Ugh, what a mess!

I remember one specific Tuesday. I was sitting in a meeting about quarterly earnings, and all I could think about was how I wanted to be anywhere else. Literally *anywhere*. I briefly considered becoming a park ranger. Or maybe opening a bakery. Anything but another meeting about percentages and projections. The funny thing is, I’d actually been good at my job! I was a high performer! But the thought of doing it for another twenty years just… suffocated me. I felt trapped.

Was I the only one feeling this way? I started discreetly asking around, you know, testing the waters with friends and former colleagues. Turns out, I wasn’t alone. Several people confessed to feeling the same sense of… restlessness, I guess. It was both comforting and terrifying. Comforting because misery loves company, I suppose, but terrifying because what the heck were we supposed to *do* about it?

My (Failed) Attempt at a Quick Fix

So, naturally, I did what any rational person would do: I panicked. I started applying for random jobs online, convinced that a change of scenery would magically solve all my problems. I even considered going back to school for something completely unrelated, like marine biology. (I live in Kansas, by the way.)

I stayed up until 2 a.m. one night researching coding bootcamps. Coding! Me! The person who still struggles to program the DVR. What was I thinking? In hindsight, I realize I was grasping at straws, desperately searching for *something*, *anything*, to alleviate this overwhelming sense of dissatisfaction.

I landed a few interviews, but none of them felt right. One was for a marketing position at a tech startup, which sounded cool in theory, but the interview process was so intense and full of buzzwords that I left feeling more confused than ever. Another was for a management role at a company that seemed… well, boring. Really boring. Like, watching-paint-dry boring.

The turning point, I think, was when my best friend, Sarah, sat me down and said, “Look, you’re clearly miserable, but you’re also being completely irrational. Maybe instead of blowing up your entire life, you could try… I don’t know… therapy?”

Slowing Down and Actually Thinking

Therapy. Ugh. I’d always been a little skeptical of therapy. It felt so… self-indulgent. But Sarah had a point. I was making impulsive decisions based on emotion, not logic. And honestly, I was kind of a mess.

So, I found a therapist. It took a few tries to find one I clicked with, but eventually, I found someone who listened without judgment and asked the right questions to help me unpack what was really going on. It wasn’t easy. There were a lot of tears, a lot of self-doubt, and a lot of uncomfortable conversations with myself.

One of the biggest things I realized was that I wasn’t necessarily unhappy with my career as a whole, but rather with certain aspects of it. The endless meetings, the lack of creative input, the feeling that I was just a cog in a giant machine. These were the things that were draining me. Not necessarily the field itself.

This realization led me to start exploring ways to tweak my current role, rather than abandoning it altogether. Could I take on different projects? Could I delegate some of the tasks I disliked? Could I find opportunities to be more creative?

Small Changes, Big Impact

I started small. I talked to my boss about taking on a new project that aligned more with my interests. I started saying “no” to meetings that weren’t essential. I even started taking lunch breaks! (I know, groundbreaking.)

I also started exploring interests outside of work. I joined a book club. I took a pottery class. I even started learning Spanish on Duolingo. It wasn’t a magic bullet, but it helped. It gave me something to look forward to, something that wasn’t tied to my job.

Honestly, it’s kind of like… peeling an onion. Layer by layer, I’m figuring out what I *really* want and how to get there, and it takes time. Who even knows what’s next? Maybe I *will* end up opening a bakery someday. But for now, I’m content with the progress I’ve made.

If you’re as curious as I was, you might want to dig into resources on career coaching or skill assessments; they helped some of my friends at least!

Still a Work in Progress

Look, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that I’ve completely conquered my mid-career crisis. Some days are still tough. Some days I still stare blankly at spreadsheets and wonder what I’m doing with my life.

But the difference now is that I have a better understanding of myself and what I need to feel fulfilled. I’m more proactive about making changes, big and small, to create a more satisfying work life. And I’m kinder to myself when I have a bad day. Because let’s be real, everyone has bad days.

And you know what? Maybe the whole “mid-career crisis” thing is just a fancy term for growing up and realizing that life is too short to be unhappy. Maybe it’s a wake-up call to re-evaluate your priorities and make sure you’re living a life that’s true to yourself. I’m still figuring it out, and honestly, that’s okay. Maybe that’s the whole point. It’s about the journey, not the destination, right? And who knows, maybe one day, I’ll actually be fluent in Spanish. One can dream!