The 21st Century Yo-Yo Career Model
Adults who come in to see me for career coaching often say that feel like their career is on a treadmill going nowhere fast or their career feels like a roller coaster ride. One day everything is going up and then the next day with no warning – it’s down, down, down!
I live and breathe every moment of my day, decades beyond traditional retirement age, to teach those in career crisis how to take creative control of their career and life. To succeed in your future career, you must know and understand:
- The job (career) as defined in the past is dead!!
- The path of loyalty to a company in return for 40-year employment, a gold watch at retirement, and going home to die within two years is totally defunct!!
- You do experience a “Dark Night”, but you have to move through the grief and burial of this former womb to tomb career ideal.
- You must replace it with the Yo Yo Career Model.
The world is moving painfully fast compared to even half a generation ago. Many adults feel totally dissatisfied by the rapid disintegration of what they once found comfortable and reassuring. There is no longer a safety net. In fact there is no longer a net at all, except what you create.
I have labeled this the Yo Yo Career Model: You’re On Your Own!
Though we may be suffering from Toffler’s Future Shock, we are responsible for balancing our own career on our current edge of chaos, constant change, complexity, and uncertainty. Though painful, frequently fearful, and characterized by a miserable middle, this can be the first step of growth, creativity, coherence, and order for our careers. Countless who are moving from misery to meaning at mid-life, find the process of re-careering similar to the journey in Andre Chedid’s poem,
Who Remains Standing? First, Erase your name, unravel your years, destroy your surroundings, uproot what you seem, and who remains standing? Then, rewrite your name, restore your age, rebuild your house, pursue your path, and then, endlessly, start over, all over again.
Read the article Journal Vol 24 No 2 Careers of the Future_excerpt “Yo Yo Model for Your Future Career” excerpted from the Career Planning and Adult Development Journal.
Ask yourself these questions:
- Am I working harder but enjoying it less?
- Do I live for Friday and suffer from Sunday night/Monday morning blues?
- Have I lost a well-paying job that I doubt I can ever replace?
- Has my work ceased to provide me with any sense of meaning or purpose?
Ready to take charge of your career? Identifying the areas of career unrest and levels of dissatisfaction is the first step. Take the Identifying Your Career Satisfaction / Unrest Questionnaire right now!
Email me your results along with your request for an initial consultation (at no charge). Provide an explanation and discussion of how I may help you with your future career!