I work with many mid-career executives who are unclear what to do next in their career. Having invested significant time building a profession, they understandably find it difficult to shift into something new–if that is the direction they’re considering.

I’ve recently had conversations with management trainees and financial analysts, all starting careers and expressing doubt about making the right career choice. It’s not about the concerns of long hours or having a difficult boss, but more “is this all there is to life?”

One analyst told me she’d been in her role for three years, and was planning to quit and write poetry. Another said she knew what she wanted to really do but was afraid to make a change, having invested so much time to become an accountant and didn’t want to feel it was all a waste of time.

Careers are not straight lines; you can take a side journey. Don’t wait for a job to end; develop another side to yourself in parallel to your full time job.

Last month, the New York Times Magazine published a series of interviews entitled “Old Masters”–delightful stories of 80 plus year-olds celebrating long-lasting careers. What drives this group of artists, academics and business people to keep going? The desire to learn, to perfect a craft and discover more. Some believed it’s important to stay with a project, while others said ‘know what’s possible and wait for the right time’. At 80 plus, time is a precious commodity.

Travelling on a bus from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur, I spoke to a young professional who shared his story. He’d studied finance in Manchester, England and was now a chef on a private yacht in the South of France. After completing an MBA, he realized life behind a desk was not for him. Not knowing what to do, he signed up to be a deck hand on a yacht. When the head chef didn’t show up, the captain asked him, “Can you cook?” That ended his finance career and started a culinary adventure.

It’s never too late to start something new. It’s never too soon to hone your craft.

How do you think about what’s next? Take out a piece of paper and a handful of pens, your career visualization roadmap-the power of free drawing.

Pen in hand, visualize and draw past achievements, setbacks, celebrations. Write headlines of experiences, lessons learned, losses and gains. Your map. Learn from the past to sketch out what’s meaningful–for you only.

Careers are not straight lines.

You may start off in accounting and end up as a sous chef.

You can go into marketing and decide to write poems.

You can begin as a primary school teacher and become CEO of an integrated media company.

Whether you’re 20, 50 or 80, when opportunity knocks, take the plunge. Enjoy the journey and appreciate the curves–and not knowing what’s around the corner. There’s much more you can add to your sojourn once you have a drawn your own map.

_{This post was first published on www.thehorangroup.com and has been reposted on Executive Lifestyle with the permission of the author.
Image: www.unsplash.com}

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