We put a lot on young people when we expect them to choose a career upon leaving school, or even in their early twenties after finishing tertiary education or some other qualification.
They are pressures that have been accumulating since early childhood, especially with that question we can probably all remember answering ourselves: What do you want to be when you grow up? And it continues as we pigeonhole people into what they could and should be good at, according to their results in certain subjects.
Upon leaving school, often our best understanding of what life will be like out there in the real world is from what we see on television and in popular culture. Indeed, there are enough legal dramas like The Good Wife to continually inspire generations of lawyers, despite there now being an oversupply of such graduates for the positions actually available in private practice.
And at a young age, it’s easy to believe the career choices we make will underpin our identify, self worth, the power we’ll have, income we’ll generate and our potential to contribute. This is a theme in Dr Jocelyn Lowinger’s piece today who, having recently attended a university careers fair with her teenage children, asks why we’re encouraging teenagers to believe their career or job title will ultimately define who they are as people.
Too often young people are not given the opportunity to consider how the career choices they make will really affect their lifestyle. Working long hours on a big deal or project can seem incredibly exhilarating — until you find yourself doing it night after night, surrounded by the confines of four walls and actually feeling homesick, despite living just a short distance away. It’s when you’re too exhausted to pursue the hobbies and activities that you actually used to enjoy, even something as simple as finding the time for a jog or surf, that your realise what little work/life balance you do have, and that’s even before you have kids.
And climbing the proverbial corporate ladder can seem like the kind of exercise you’re determined to stick with for life, until the realities of just why there are so few female leaders at the top, as well as the values and personal desires you may have to sacrifice along the way, really kick in.
Even the promise of a career with travelling prospects can quickly lose it’s allure. No amount of business class travel, five star hotels or airport lounges can remove the fact many people would simply prefer to be home for dinner.
The pressures we place on getting career decisions right can leave some feeling depressed and anxious during their first few years in the workforce, often spending their twenties in positions they hate, without the autonomy they may have expected, and awaiting a significant moment in their lives when things may change for the better.
Many women discover the need to consider their lifestyle in their career after ten or so years working in an industry. It’s the ten year itch, and the point where women commonly drop out of certain industries and positions, or even off the corporate ladder altogether, in order to take back some time and energy for their own personal pursuits.
While having children is an obvious catalyst for when and why this might occur, it’s not the only catalyst. One doesn’t need children to realise NOT spending 70 or 80 hours a week working could actually be a good thing.
It’s all a question of balance, and actually discovering how we can pursue such balance. But it’s a question I wonder why we’re not figuring out the answer to much earlier in life. Why does it take a decade of corporate burnout to realise just how we’d like to split our time between work and life, or even to develop the values we believe should determine the way we live? And shouldn’t the fact so many women are opting out of the workforce altogether after such a period provide an indication that prevention might be better than the cure?
I believe companies could do more to re-evaluate salaries, hours and positions to better avoid the corporate burnout that inevitably and eventually hits so many men and women later on. Young, ambitious, self-starters will naturally be willing and able to put in the long hours and energy they need to kickstart their career. They’ll work hard, believing face time in the office will ultimately lead to career rewards, but it could all be for nothing if they eventually start resenting the time they put in and leave their employers or professions just when they’re starting to become a truly valuable asset.
But I also believe we could all do more to encourage young people to see a career as more than a decision that’s made upon pursuing a particular qualification, graduate program or work experience. A career is something we can improvise according to our values. It can be flexible enough to shift with the opportunities that come our way, and be ramped on and off in line with our continually changing life circumstances.
Let’s take the pressure off young people to answer that question of, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ And instead ask them to consider, ‘What kind of person do you want to be?’ We’ll encourage the development of more holistic, resilient, flexible, interesting and ethical people as a result.