If you’re a man in your 40s, 50s, or 60s and you’re unhappy at work, you may be stuck in something I call The Midlife Work Unhappiness Loop.
It goes like this:
- You know something’s not right.
- You can’t picture a safe way to change it.
- So you carry on, hoping something will shift on its own.
Weeks turn into months. Months into years. The job eats away at your energy, and the unhappiness starts to bleed into your health, your home life, even how you see yourself.
The loop isn’t just about hating your work — it’s about feeling trapped between knowing you need change and believing change is too risky.
Three forces feed it:
1. Loss of clarity.
You’ve been doing the same thing for so long that your job and your identity have fused together. You can’t easily picture another way of working — or who you’d be if you stepped away from this role.
2. Fear of loss.
This is a high-stakes stage of life. Mortgage, retirement savings, kids, ageing parents — the idea of risking your income or status feels reckless, even if the current path is slowly draining you.
3. Erosion of confidence.
You’re competent where you are. You’ve earned your place. But stepping into something new would make you a beginner again. And you wonder if you’d still have what it takes to compete, especially with younger, faster, more tech-savvy colleagues.
Put those together and you get paralysis.
You want change. You can’t see the way. So you don’t move.
Breaking the Loop
Here’s the thing: change doesn’t always mean walking out the door. One of the most overlooked options — and one I rarely see discussed — is reshaping your role where you already are.
That means having a candid, well-thought-out conversation with your employer about how you could bring more value to them and to yourself if your role was adjusted.
That might mean:
- Taking on more of the work you enjoy and are best at.
- Dropping the parts that drain you and add little value.
- Moving into a different role in the same organisation that plays to your strengths.
- Negotiating more flexibility in where, when, or how you work.
This is not about demanding less work or an easier ride. It’s about finding the overlap between what you do best and what the company needs most. That’s the sweet spot where you thrive, they benefit, and you avoid the nuclear option of quitting before you’re ready.
The Next Step
Breaking the Midlife Work Unhappiness Loop starts with three questions:
- What’s actually making me unhappy here?
- What would make my work more energising and meaningful?
- How could I bring that to the table in a way that benefits the company too?
From there, you can explore all the options — including staying put in a role that works better for you.
Sometimes the best escape route isn’t out the door. It’s finding a new way to stand where you already are.
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