How to React to Your Inevitable Professional Decline
Hint: Use Your Crystallized Intelligence
Picture Credit: Pixabay – Geralt
Have you ever gotten lost and ended up at a dead end? The dead end of your professional career? Have you felt the sting of your professional decline? Perhaps the signs were clear. Were they flashing before your very eyes?
Did you notice or turn the other way, hoping you would not meet another dead end face to face? The reality is, we all run into dead ends. We have one choice. Turn around and reroute, follow a new journey and get to a new destination.
The roads we travel may lead to dead ends, but the journey we take in life doesn’t have to. When we navigate through our professional career we often come to what we think are dead ends.
Lay Offs, Acquisitions, Burned Out?
Dead ends called burn outs,layoffs and acquisitions or burn outs. Dead ends can come in many forms, and at first they all seem like the end, but a cold hard stop can actually be a new beginning.
Picture Credit: Pixabay – OpenClipArt & Openicons
Dead Ends are Often Disguised as New Beginnings……
Dead Ends Give Us a Chance to Around Focus and Merge….
Dead ends give us a chance to turn around, focus and merge into our new journey.
As you think about your current journey, I’ll review general statistics related to careers, happiness and your professional decline. Ouch that hurts doesn’t it. Professional decline. Who ever heard or admitted to such a thing? Aren’t we invisible, always growing our knowledge and skill base? We are just as good as we’ve ever been, only better! The fact is, we spend so much time scaling, improving and growing that we aren’t prepared to meet that dead end. The end called our professional decline. Those dead ends are often less obvious because we live in the obscurity of the traffic we call life.
Dead Ends are Inevitable….
But, dead ends are inevitable and so is our professional decline. Arthur Brooks, a social scientist is a contributing writer for The Atlantic and a professor in public leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, a senior fellow at the Harvard Business School and host of the podcast The Art of Happiness with Arthur Brooks. Lots of credentials so I decided to give his article my attention:
Your Professional Decline is Coming Much Sooner Than You Think. Here’s How to Make the Most of It.
Picture Credit: Pixabay – Geralt & Openicons
There’s More Than One Way to Succeed!
When I first read that title I was probably in the same space that you are when you considered reading my blog (or continuing to read). I didn’t think his article would make me feel great about my stage of life. I wasn’t ready to embrace a sense of professional decline. I’m not even willing to admit my age so why or how would I jump on the bandwagon of professional decline. I’ll tell you why. Because I’m a realist; a “rational” optimist. I also thought Dr. Arthur Brooks probably had and has something meaningful to contribute, so I decided to stay open minded and see what he had to say.
He began his article sharing a story about a conversation he overheard on a plane. He heard a woman tell her husband (Arthur’s assumption) that he shouldn’t say things like that. He had lots to offer and shouldn’t “wish he were dead.” Arthur grew curious. Why would this man say such a thing? Was this gentleman carrying around the disappointment list of life’s wished for goals? The life he never had? Did he have a bucket list that he never visited? No, surprisingly not, the man who had wished he were dead was a world famous hero. So why would a man who had such great accomplishments want to be dead?
Picture Credit: Pixabay – Skitterphoto & RotatingMass
Arthur used his skills as a social scientist and tried to put meaning around that very perplexing mindset. Two key points came out of his studies:
- Happiness studies derived from well being studies support that the happiness of most adults decline in their 30’s and 40’s and hits an all time low in their early 50’s. ( Johnathan Rauch, The Happiness Curve: Why Life Gets Better After 50)
- After 50, your happiness levels generally increase again until somewhere in your 70’s.
Arthur’s fancy term for what this man was experiencing is called the
“ Principle of Psychoprofessional Gravitation.”
“The Principle of Psychoprofessional Gravitation: the idea that the agony of professional oblivion is directly related to the height of professional prestige previously achieved, and to one’s emotional attachment to that prestige.” _Arthur Brooks
Picture Credit: Pixabay – Elisa28Diamonds
Arthur sums this principle up as like this:
“You’ve done work of world-historical significance yet wind up feeling like a failure.”
Picture Credit: The Atlantic – Arthur Brooks & Twitter
For those of us who appreciate the Arthur’s of the world, I’ve broken down what I believe Psychoprofessional Gravitation means to me.
“The Principle of Psychoprofessional Gravitation means that the higher you go the harder the fall.”
_Kim Sheldahl
When we are accomplished and feel we can no longer do what we use to do it pains us. The problem is that’s a fact of life. We age, things change and professional decline is inevitable. But frankly, if you’re like me you don’t even like to think about tiny lines around your eyes, let alone tiny gaps in memory.
People ultimately arrive at what they perceive to be their dead end. They are sad, anxious or depressed. They feel as if they can no longer climb higher ladders, make more money or discover the next cure. But it seems to me that instead of “wishing they were dead” they should turn that dead end into a merger plan.
You aren’t doomed! We aren’t doomed! We are not trading in our bucket list for a kick the bucket plan. Rather we should maximize our merge and take advantage of the cards that are stacked in our favor.
What’s the Answer to Professional Decline?
Let’s Consider and Example:
I’m not offering a unicorn and cupcake approach to this social science problem. We begin to decline after 50, yet in most cases we are happier and the studies show that we are generally happier for an average of 20 years. That’s a long time. What will you do with 20 years?
My suggestion, plan your “Merger.” Allow me to curate more of Arthur’s article to prove to you “why” you need to plan your merger. We’ll look 2 famous people who took different approaches once they realized their professional decline was staring them in the face.
Charles Darwin:
- Rose to fame in his 20’s for his discoveries in zoology and biology.
- For the next 30 years he was a celebrated scientist.
- In his 50’s his research came to a dead end.
“Depressed in his later years, he wrote to a close friend, “I have not the heart or strength at my age to begin any investigation lasting years, which is the only thing which I enjoy.”
– Arthur C. Brooks
Johann Sebastian Bach:
Bach was born into a family of prominent musicians
He was the crème de la crème of musical geniuses.
Back published over 1,000 pieces.
Early in his career he was sought after, emulated and prestigious.
Dead End – HIs fame, “as he knew it,” didn’t last.
The musical trends changed, somewhat like the impact of the Beatles and Elvis. Bach’s own son, Carl Phillip Emanuel introduced a new style of classical music. And this music became all the rage over Europe. Carl took over his dad’s prestigious position and dad needed a new road.
Instead of staying lost, Bach Redirected & Merged:
Bach was no longer the composer he “used to be” but he didn’t throw in his towel and “wish he were dead.” He didn’t write letters to others expressing his dismay. Instead he reinvented himself. He merged his talents and began teaching.
“When Bach fell behind, he reinvented himself as a master instructor. He died beloved, fulfilled, and—though less famous than he once had been—respected.”
– Arthur C. Brooks
Wanna’ Be More Like Bach and Less Like Darwin?
Arthur tells us how to be more like Bach and less like Darwin and I think he is on to something. The likely answer lies in crystallized intelligence.
“A potential answer lies in the work of the British psychologist Raymond Cattell, who in the early 1940s introduced the concepts of fluid and crystallized intelligence.”
We have two basic types of intelligence, fluid and crystallized. VeryWell Mind defines the two intelligences as:
“Fluid intelligence refers to the ability to reason and think flexibly. Crystallized intelligence refers to the accumulation of knowledge, facts, and skills that are acquired throughout life.
When you reinvent yourself after 50 invest in your crystallized intelligence. Maybe you’re not Darwin or Bach, but over the years, you’ve gathered up lots of facts, knowledge and skills. You house those gifts in a space called you. If you’ve run into a roadblock or dead end, rethink your journey. Merge your past experience, skills, knowledge, education and passions into a version of yourself that can span the next 20 plus years.
If you need a little more motivation, read my other blog: “How to Bullet Proof Your Motivation One Step at a Time.” You’ll get more tips on how to turn your next journey into a great destination.
Other notes and goodies:
If you want to listen to Arthur’s interview with The Atlantic check it out on You Tube.
Your Professional Decline is Coming Much Sooner Than You Think
Interested in a FREE Maneuver Your Merge Journal?
If you want to know “If You Might Be a Merger….” then take my quiz. I’ll give you more goodies for being proactive about your journey!
About the Author: Kimberly Sheldahl is a former executive, turned Kolbe Certified™ Consultant who is also a Wellness Coach. She is passionate about the integration of productivity and well-being. Kim is the host of BOOM Baby BOOM, a T.V. show/podcast which will begin airing on Transformation TV in September.
Kim is the #1 Best Selling Author of Hack Into OZ, Get the Most Out of Life, available on Amazon. Her course, IMPACT will also be released this summer along with an introductory course, Mapping the Big Picture the predecessor to Maneuvering Your Merge!
Contact Kim @ Kintsugi Life.Biz and type “Merger” in the subject line to receive freebies and additional assessments. In the meantime, Connect & Follow Kim on:
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Watch Arthur Brooks tell this story here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Xa pRdgM