Managing the mid-career inflection point
Photo by Pawel Kadysz on Unsplash
More and more clients lately have been running into an inflection point. It goes something like this…
You’re paid really well in your job but it’s high stress with a lot of hours.
Do you walk away to take a less stressful and demanding job that’s lower paying?
Or do you try to hang on until the finish line i.e. your eventual retirement?
Answering these questions for yourself starts with realizing there’s not a right or wrong answer – just the one that works best for you. Try to avoid looking at your friends, neighbors, or co-workers and take a look within yourself to find your own best path forward.
Next you’ll want to get a better sense of how much “extra” you have right now. Your “extra” includes your current cash cushion along with any unused cash flow after accounting for your annual spending, savings, taxes, and goals.
For example, let’s say you have $100k in a cash cushion and you project to have $50k in unused cash flow left over each year.
If you’re thinking about walking away from your current job to figure out what’s next, how much time will your $100k cash cushion buy you based on your current spending?
If that’s not enough time, I’d save as much of that unused cashflow as you can until you’ve built up enough cash cushion to cover the time you’d like to afford yourself for your job search.
On the other hand, let’s say you’d like to push through the finish line with your current gig. In this case, that extra $50k in cash flow might be better used on some vacations to de-stress along the way while investing the rest long-term in hopes of moving up your finish line.
So again, there’s not a good or bad, right or wrong choice to be made here. The best way to manage your mid-career inflection point is to look inward and see which direction you’re personally inclined to go.
Once you’re clear on that, it’s easier to put the extra funds that your well paying, high stress job affords you in service of both your current and future self.