Invest in Your Future
No matter how successful you are, occasionally you need to pause and take an analytical, reflective look at your career. At midlife especially it may be time to re-calibrate. We can get caught up with managing an endless stream of pressing demands, and many years can pass without a conscious review of our priorities and direction. To remain fulfilled and purposeful throughout a long career requires a thoughtful pro-active approach.
Using the concept of intangible assets can provide a useful framework to approach such a mid-life ‘stock-take’. In their book ‘The 100 Year Life’ Gratton and Scott (2020) outline the importance of actively managing three classes of intangible assets:
- Productive assets – our skills and knowledge
- Vitality assets – our health, wellbeing and relationships
- Transformational assets – self-knowledge – a clear understanding of your strengths, skills and personality, your capacity to develop diverse networks and your openness to new experiences.
Careful maintenance and mindful investment in these assets is key to crafting a successful and sustainable career. Unlike more tangible financial assets, intangible assets can’t be bought or sold, which makes proactive planning in their investment even more crucial.
Transformational assets are particularly important at times of transition in our lives.
‘Self-knowledge is needed to plot a path through change and transitions, above all to provide a sense of identity and coherence…This self-knowledge helps ensure that future stages are more likely to succeed, and that change is viewed as less threatening to a sense of identity’. (Gratton and Scott, 2020)
Reviewing your career and planning for change takes courage and energy. It’s a natural human tendency to find the prospect of change challenging. Rumination, anxiety or avoidance are common responses when we anticipate change, but they are all antithetical to creativity. We have found that taking planned time away in a beautiful environment, and working with others at a similar stage in life is a hugely effective way to empower individuals to move forward with energy and purpose into the next chapter of their lives.
Contact us for the dates of our next Unlock Your Future event in the Lake District.
Source: Gratton L and Scott A. The 100-Year Life: Living and Working in an Age of Longevity. Bloomsbury. 2020