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When Small Steps Can Change Your Life

— Recently you advised a reader who has eight years to go until retirement and is trying to decide whether to stick with an unhappy job or look for something new. (“Is a Late-Career Change Worth It?,” March 3, 2018.)

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By
ROB WALKER
, New York Times

— Recently you advised a reader who has eight years to go until retirement and is trying to decide whether to stick with an unhappy job or look for something new. (“Is a Late-Career Change Worth It?,” March 3, 2018.)

I wish you had offered the thought that first this person should petition for less travel (since travel seemed to be the main source of dissatisfaction). I find many teams are willing to work around an individual collaborator’s inability to travel a lot. This could encourage the worker to consider options within the current company, which might prove beneficial. — ANONYMOUS

— Your reader who is eight years from retirement and hates her job might do well to look into what is often called “job crafting.” Perhaps there is some way to remake the job or remake how the person thinks about his job, and end up feeling more fulfilled.

Even if that doesn’t work, the person might still use some of those approaches to craft the next job, to make it as fulfilling as possible. A positive psychology career coach (I am one) can help with this. — GAYLE SCROGGS, EASTON, MARYLAND

A: That column inspired quite a few responses. And I think the idea expressed in these two replies — to make this less of a binary stay-or-go decision, and instead try to reshape the job at hand — deserves further exploration. In fact, I was curious enough about Gayle Scroggs’ positive-psychology take on job crafting that I gave her a call, and then explored academic research on the subject.

But before I get to that, it’s worth briefly sharing some of the other feedback I received. The column argued for thinking hard about exploring new options with an open mind, suggesting that one would most likely regret giving in to the idea that there’s no choice but to ride out those unhappy years until retirement.

And indeed a number of readers offered their own anecdotes of late-career-change success stories. One quit Wall Street for a public sector job in Rhode Island, and called the move “very rewarding.” Another described two years working (and networking) her way toward escaping a “toxic boss” and an unhappy work culture.

“At 59, I switched jobs last year and have never been happier,” she wrote. “Make a plan, set yourself a deadline, and do the work.”

A couple of readers actually suggested I was too wishy-washy about arguing for a change: “One might get to a traditional retirement age and not be able to enjoy life,” one reader argued, “so why put off living the very best life one can possibly have each and every day?”

That said, a few readers sounded cautionary notes. One described going back to school to switch career trajectories — and having a hard time finding work afterward.

“Looking back, I wish I had done more research on education after age 50,” this person wrote. “This was a costly option and I now have many regrets.”

On Twitter, another reader cited the work of Herminia Ibarra, a professor of organizational behavior at London Business School, who has advocated a “test and learn” approach to career management: experimenting with new work interests on a smaller scale, rather than making a sweeping change.

That idea is not very far from trying to reshape one’s current job rather than dump it for a new one. Job crafting, it turns out, is a term associated with the work of Amy Wrzesniewski, a professor of organizational behavior at the Yale School of Management.

It involves focusing on the elements of your job that you can control to steadily reshape your gig. This might mean emphasizing certain tasks over others, or changing the nature and frequency of interaction with particular colleagues. Those might seem like marginal actions, but the idea is they can add up to a more satisfying day-to-day experience.

They can also help you work with your boss to adjust your responsibilities so that they better match your (evolving) skills, Scroggs suggested when we spoke.

“Work on engagement,” she said. “You want to have a supervisor who cares about you, and say ‘This is how I do my best work, can I do it this way?'” So asking for something like a reduction in work travel can be positioned as something that isn’t just better for you, it’s better for the organization.

Job crafting can sound more like a coping strategy than a plan for discovering your calling — but sometimes that may be appropriate. It can be helpful to frame such changes as something practical and doable, not radical and dramatic.

Scroggs recounted coaching one burned-out client to make her commute more enjoyable, and invite friends to lunch, for example.

“I focused her on appreciating the positive things,” rather than obsessing over the negatives, Scroggs said. These modest-sounding actions, barely related to work itself, ended up improving the client’s performance and overall comfort with her job.

“Then she told me the bad news,” Scroggs added with a laugh, “which was that she didn’t need me anymore.”

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