The future of your work as you age

At any time of life you can reflect on your profession, review how fulfilled you are and how well it fits into your ideal lifestyle. However life events; such as becoming parents, caring for elderly relatives, redundancies or  wanting to spend more time enjoying interests can make this more urgent. IF you believe you will need to work longer your happiness and suitability of work should be paramount.

Below are a few steps to consider in your review, taking into account your immediate situation and but also changes and desires that impact your future.

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Identify whether your current role is suitable

Firstly decide whether you want to stay in your profession for longer, whether your current role will still be suitable as you age; can you continue your role indefinitely.

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Things to consider are:

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• Stress/pressure, as we age and have other commitments in life we may want to reduce this if we currently have a very stressful or high pressurised role.
• Suitability, is the job extremely physical and therefore not going to be something you can do in later life. 
• Time consuming, do you want/need to change your work patterns to fit in other commitments.  
• Enjoyment, if your job is no longer giving you the enjoyment you are seeking then you need to look to see what else you can do.  
  

Options to stay in your profession but adjust to a new position;

• Teach/ Mentoring, many companies want to retain the skills you have earned over the years and therefore will facilitate programmes where you are able to pass on those skills to others.  
• Consulting, once you have reached an expertise in your field, you may be able to consult for companies on an ad hoc basis. 
• Part-time or Role share, if you need more time to do other things you can try to reduce your hours and stay in the same role or combine a role change with shorter hours. 
  

If you decide to stay in the same profession, the first port of call is to speak to your current employer and see whether they can assist you in one of these transitions. 

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If you want to change your profession?

If after careful consideration you want to change your career now or in the future then you need to go through a process to ensure that it will grow with you in the future and satisfies your needs. Changing careers especially as we age can be scary, but there are many people who have done this successfully. As we age the same career we may have fallen into in our twenties may not be as suitable or as exciting as we age.

Steps to changing your profession; there are many books, courses and coaches which can facilitate you in finding a new role.

A very simple way of looking at this is to look at these 4 areas;

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1. what am I good at
2. what do I enjoy
3. what can I get paid for 
4. what the world needs

Where all these 4 things intersect is what is known in Japanese culture as Ikigai.   This is a starting point, before you look more deeply. If you need support or a programme to help you, look through the resources below.
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Your work and your purpose is closely linked, view the purpose and achievements articles to see other areas that can add to your purpose and legacy.