Hi, I am a millennial and I am experiencing a career crisis!
Have you ever felt that the work you were once good at now bores you? Are you a millennial seriously considering an early retirement or lamenting at the thought of working until retirement age? Are you someone who climbed the ranks of leadership in your 20s and 30s only to find yourself burned out and unhappy? Do you continue to feel depleted and exhausted every day of the week? Is work making you lose your joy? If you answered yes to any of these questions, and you’re a millennial, you may be experiencing a career crisis.
Throughout my early adult life, I had to make a lot of calculated career choices in order to achieve upward mobility — I chose to pursue a graduate degree, as I associated education with increased earning potential. As a child from a working family, a college degree was seen as a tool to ascending to a middle-class life. Arguably, it was seen as the only tool as a high school diploma wouldn’t come close to granting me the financial security and freedom I sought.
I made the decision to work while pursuing a doctorate degree so I could earn money, increase my skill set, and pad my resume. The more work experience I had — the easier it would be to find a job. I knew my Blackness was a mark against me, but being both Black and unqualified would have created more hurdles. At one point while pursuing a PhD, I had 4 different jobs. I was teaching, doing research, career coaching, and held a part time job at the health department. I kept feeding myself this false narrative that by spreading myself so thin, I could show employers that I was versatile and agile. I attended networking events, sought out a few career mentors, joined a few boards, had stellar references, and did all the right things in order to find a job that paid well, and provided me fulfillment. Some of my career choices involved relocating to a new city. Being childless, able bodied and mobile allowed me to make these career moves without barriers or hesitation. I slowly found myself in a director role before the age of 30. I thought I had reached the pinnacle and that happiness would soon follow.
In many of my roles, I over-exceled. I was outpacing the work ethic and accomplishments of other colleagues by far. Many of my workplaces cultivated and nurtured my entrepreneurial and creative spirit. I loved jobs that allowed me to create new things and introduce new procedures and processes. In my early 30s, work revigorated me, and I enjoyed the hustle and multitasking culture. I enjoyed working late, and on weekends to show that my work ethic was unparalleled, and that I was a force to be reckoned with. As a young Black girl, I was always told that I had to work twice as hard to get half as far — although we never stop to think about how toxic this saying really is. It only continues to refuel burnout culture for Black women.
Through a series of upwardly mobile career moves, I received accolades and praises from my superiors, won awards, got a few promotions, and essentially became an example to others of what career success looked like in your early to mid-30s. Work always came easy to me. I didn’t play sports growing up so I didn’t receive much notoriety or attention through much of my adolescence. So, work became my only way to feel a sense of accomplishment. Using work to fulfill some childhood void of feeling like you’re not enough just isn’t okay.
It felt good to be noticed for my work performance , even if others didn’t fully understand the personal sacrifices it took to overperform. Career success and grind culture can make you feel incredibly empty, lonely and soulless — you start to feel as if your whole identity is wrapped up in work, and you realize you have lost every bit of your personal mojo and uniqueness. We’re told to go to college, get the degrees and extra certifications, work incredibly hard, go after every promotion and put yourself out there…but no one prepares you for the unhappiness and lack of fulfillment you feel after you have done all the right things, and in the right way.
At times the lack of fulfillment feels utterly indescribable, and at times the idea of complaining about having a great paying job that affords you great power and influence in a world where others are experiencing massive layoffs and unemployment uncertainty feels disingenuous. Sunday scaries are becoming increasingly common to the point where weekends are no longer enjoyable. Having a calendar full of meetings, and being responsible for leading and directing people, and an entire department doesn’t feel motivating or satisfying. Constantly being the person who must be the first to speak, the one who must come up with all the great ideas, and the one who has to be the last to leave is unmanageable — it’s hard to pour from an empty cup —and the constant extraction that one has to undergo in a leadership role without any opportunity for a refill is unjust and inhumane.
Society believes that education and skill attainment leads to greater professional freedom — we trust those with the most experience and knowledge to lead our organizations — however, no one talks about the never-ending stress and unsustainable workload that accompanies leadership roles. No one talks about the many personal sacrifices you must make in order to stay afloat and ahead of the leadership curve — these sacrifices include many of the rewards that others enjoy — taking vacations, having children, and most importantly, taking care of yourself.
I couldn’t quite articulate many of my feelings until I found a video on Instagram that dupped this experience as the millennial career crisis. Instagram user Kelly Weimert talks about millennials who have spent their adult life working towards a particular career, and now they absolutely abhor and hate it. The video garnered thousands of comments with folks lamenting their own careers. In this moment, I felt vindicated, and I watched the video over 20 times just to confirm that I wasn’t crazy.
The millennial career crisis is governed by a pivotal awakening, where we realize that the meaning of work has changed in our lives. It’s naïve to think that an ever-changing and turbulent economy wouldn’t completely shift how we think about and perceive the importance of work. For our parent’s generation, many of them were grateful to just have a job — a job signified financial stability and they gave unrelenting loyalty in return for a paycheck.
Our parents and grandparents found joy in blue collar work and were able to live a semi decent life on modest means. Millennials entered the workforce during the worst downturn since the Great Depression — -we’re saddled with more debt, and unable to accumulate wealth, and the financial security that previous generations did. We’re carrying the baggage of student debt, a housing crisis, wage stagnation and a global pandemic. Previous generations were able to work a 9–5 without much pressure to work weeknights and weekends —we’re now finding ourselves more educated and more skilled, but in unhealthy organizations that are facing significant staff shortages, low employee morale, and high burnout cultures.
We’re working more and carrying more work. We acknowledge that even with longer hours, we’re still unable to live a completely comfortable middle class life without worrying about all the ways to make more money. We work too hard to feel like we never have enough. We’re coming to terms with the fact that consistent burnout from week to week isn’t sustainable until retirement. Every week is like a marathon — -juggling too many meetings, too many commitments and too many projects — only to end each week feeling unaccomplished, and somehow you must try and replenish your cup in 48 hours just to do it all over again. It really sucks. And we’re admitting that all the education and training to get to a modest salary to live a life that is completely defeating just isn’t worth it.
I am not entirely sure how to combat the millennial career crisis. I do know I have made about three different career changes in the last 6 years, and I have even entertained the idea of full-time entrepreneurship or taking a sabbatical — but the consistency of a paycheck makes the unpredictability of entrepreneurship an afterthought. I have found myself job hopping in search of something better, and different — only to find out that the problem was that I hated the idea of working all together. Cue Kim Kardashian. It’s true, no one wants to work anymore. Once you come to terms with the fact that you’re merely an object in an exploitative capitalist agenda —that requires you to give unrelenting loyalty to an organization that wouldn’t even mourn your loss if you died is disturbing.
How can we continue to succumb our lives to this rat race?
But at least now I can name it the millennial career crisis because for so long, I felt an incredible amount of guilt for not being grateful for just having a job or loving what I do. I think the question for many millennials is do we want to live a life being defined and consumed by our jobs, or do we want to redefine the meaning of work in our lives? This may involve making bold moves like taking a career break, a sabbatical, jumping into entrepreneurship, demanding our organizations adopt better human-centric cultures or setting better work-life boundaries.
For now, I am content knowing I am not alone in my feelings. The millennial career crisis is real!
