Midlife crisis: where does it come from and can we fight it

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

Hans Schwandt, a psychologist and researcher at Princeton University, wrote a column for the Harvard Business Review on the midlife crisis. Why we are faced with such a condition and how, according to Schwandt, it can be overcome - read in this article.

A midlife crisis can happen to anyone. Even with someone who is happy with their job. You will feel it immediately. Productivity will drop, the desire to work will disappear, and the desire to change your inferior life will become paramount.

And despite the fact that a huge number of people are suffering from the midlife crisis, there are no answers to many questions.

What are the reasons?

Why does it arise precisely in the middle of life?

How to deal with it?

Research into the disease began quite recently. A group of economists, led by Professor Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick, found that the average person's job satisfaction declines in middle age. Not the best news, but we already knew that. However, the researchers also found that job satisfaction increased again after a certain amount of time. This phenomenon can even be depicted schematically in the form of the Latin letter U. At first, job satisfaction falls, then returns to its previous value or becomes even greater.

Later, it was shown that the U-curve is only part of a broader phenomenon. This degradation has been found in many people in more than 50 countries around the world.

Life satisfaction is at a high level in youth, then slowly drops by age 30, reaching a critically low value between 40 and 50, and rises again after 50 years.

The U-curve affects everyone: executives in huge companies, factory workers or housewives.

In order to get answers to the questions raised at the beginning of the article, Hans Schwandt analyzed the results of one of the German ones. During it, 23 thousand people were interviewed in the period from 1991 to 2004. The respondents were asked to rate their satisfaction with life at a given moment in time and predict what it will be like in five years.

Surprisingly, not all survey participants accurately predicted their feelings in the future. It turned out that young people are overly optimistic and expect a significant jump in the level of life satisfaction. Middle-aged respondents answered more restrainedly: in their opinion, they would become the middle class with a good job, a happy marriage and healthy children.

Excessive optimism at a young age can be explained in terms of science. Since the brain still does not have enough experience and information for analysis, it is difficult for it to correctly and rationally make a prediction.

As we grow up, it turns out that things are not quite what we thought. Careers are not built so quickly. Or we start to make more money, but are not happy with what we do. Because of this, in middle age, we are faced with disappointments and unfulfilled predictions.

Paradoxically, more often than not, those who seemingly need to complain the least suffer the most. They are disappointed in themselves because they have not been able to achieve their goals. Thus, getting into a vicious circle, getting out of which is not so easy.

But over time, the brain learns to distance itself from regrets, since they do not bring anything to the body except negative consequences.

At least the latter are talking about this unusual skill in our brains. The combination of finally accepting your life as it is and not regretting it helps you get past your midlife crisis.

But who wants to wait until 50 to overcome the crisis? Fortunately, according to Schwandt, there are ways to deal with it much faster:

To understand that dissatisfaction with one's work is normal and this is only a temporary stage in life.
A corporate culture focused on coping with the midlife crisis among employees is also very rewarding: meeting mentors, talking together, and creating the right environment for employees.
Assess your current position, compare it with your expectations and analyze what you are missing.

A midlife crisis can be a painful part of your life, but it can also turn into an opportunity to reassess your own strengths and weaknesses. What it will become depends on what you will do: quietly wait for the time when everything will be fine, or take the situation into your own hands and do everything for your bright future.

Based on Hans Schwandt