Kieran Setiya, a philosophy professor at MIT, says many people experience a mid-career crisis. Some have regrets about paths not taken or serious professional missteps; others feel a sense of boredom or futility in their ongoing streams of work. The answer isn’t always to find a new job or lobby for a promotion. Motivated by his own crisis, Setiya started looking for ways to cope and discovered several strategies that can help all of us shift our perspective on our careers and get out of the slump without jumping ship. He is the author of the HBR article “Facing Your Mid-Career Crisis.”
This episode originally aired on HBR IdeaCast on February 12, 2019.
Chapters:
00:00 – Intro
2:11 – Midlife vs. Mid-Career Crisis
6:29 – The Grand Cartoon of Lives Unlived
12:09 – Shifting Your Mindset About Work
19:55 – To Change Careers, or Not
24:49 – Outro