How to fill those “Gap” years between who you are today, and who you can be tomorrow?
You’ve been running that race for years, the rat race, the daily grind, cycling in circles on the hamster wheel. You’ve attained the American Dream; the big house, the SUV, kids through college, daughters’ weddings, club memberships, even services for cleaning your house and mowing your lawn. And here you are today – still at it; day after soul sucking day. Work used to be a fulfilling life with camaraderie among colleagues, smooth, cordial relations with the bosses, and dependable pay raises; but lately work has been changing. It’s not so much fun anymore. In fact, you’ve seen good people go by the wayside, either laid off, quit, move ahead or move out. The management team doesn’t walk around smiling anymore, and pay raises are slow, low, or non-existent. What is happening here? It’s not the enjoyable experience it used to be. Competent coworkers are gone. The workforce is shrinking, but the workload is increasing. And you still have obligations, some of them big, including not enough money in the bank to retire if things get any worse. How will you survive the next five to ten years in such a grueling atmosphere? You’re too old for this and it’s not what you signed up for. But you are painfully aware that you have to lay low, ride the tide, and stay under the radar screen until your magic number comes up.
Does this scenario sound familiar to you? If so, you are not unlike thousands of people who after many years are ready to cry “Uncle”. The only problem is that you are stuck because your resume is rusty, you’re comfortable for all the wrong reasons, but you still have this nagging sensation that there has to be more to life than spending you last few years with a company dodging the proverbial bullet.
Read more when this tale of being wedged between what you want and what you have now continues in my next blog.
