Whether you’re quietly dreading Mondays or dramatically dreaming of quitting it all, midlife can be your moment to reset, realign, and reimagine your work life. Here’s how to pivot with purpose and power—without blowing up your life.
The Midlife Burnout Crisis—And Why It’s Not the End
By the time you hit 50, you’ve probably been working for three decades. You’ve risen, stumbled, led teams, missed deadlines, hit KPIs, and made more coffee than you’d care to admit. So, if you’re feeling like you’ve hit a wall—know this: you’re not alone, and you’re not broken. Originally profiled in the 1970s to describe the consequences of severer stress and high ideals in “helping” professions i.e. medical and healthcare practitioners, Burnout is now formally recognised as a disease by the World Health Organisation who define it as:
“Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualised as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It is characterised by three dimensions;
- Feelings of physical and emotional energy depletion and/or chronic exhaustion
- Increased mental distance from one’s job, or feelings of negativism or cynicism related to one’s job; and
- Reduced personal accomplishment and professional inefficacy.
Burnout, therefore, stems not from laziness or incompetence, but from chronic workplace stress that hasn’t been properly managed. For many midlife professionals, this stress accumulates as disconnection, depletion, and a quiet crisis of purpose.
According to a 2024 article by The Guardian, emotional burnout and lack of meaning are two of the top triggers for mid-career shifts, particularly among men in leadership roles. In Australia, this trend is growing. Dr Tom Buckley a leading wellbeing researchers at StriveStronger, explained on The Leadership Diet podcast with Pod O’Sullivan, that burnout is rarely about hours worked—it’s about chronic depletion and lack of recovery.
But here’s the twist: this very discomfort can be your breakthrough.
Research from the Harvard Business Review and McKinsey reveals that men in their 50s often hit a point where identity, not income, becomes the focus. What was once a ladder becomes a loop. You’ve been promoted, built things, survived restructures, coached teams—but now the voice inside says: “What’s next?”
How to prevent burnout …. For men, especially those in senior roles or breadwinner positions, admitting burnout can feel like admitting weakness. But in reality, it’s a signal—an alert—that something vital in your life and work needs to change.
Why Men Over 50 Are Rethinking Work—and Winning
A 2023 Fidelity Investments study on midlife transitions revealed that over 45% of men aged 50 to 65 are actively considering a career change—not because they have to, but because they want to. This isn’t about running away from responsibility. It’s about running toward meaning.
Adrian Chiles, Author and columnist with The Guardian, who wrote candidly about scaling back his BBC workload and diving into his “side life” of writing, volunteering, and rediscovering a sense of usefulness. “I had no idea how badly I needed to stop,” he confessed.
Similarly, Dr. Tom Buckley’s work on burnout prevention shows that a sense of purpose, not just productivity, is one of the best buffers against career fatigue. What’s changing is this: success at 55 looks different than it did at 35. The quest isn’t for promotion. It’s for alignment. It’s less “What do I want to do?” and more “Who do I want to be while doing it?”
The ability, and indeed privilege, to be able to take time and stock in asking those questions allows us as men to pro-actively redesign the latter half of our career into one that we consciously choose and one that suits us.
6 Moves to Redesign Your Career in Midlife and Makes Your Moves Stick
1. Stop. Reflect. Reframe.
Don’t leap into a new job out of desperation. Start with a proper pause. Ask yourself:
- What’s working—and what isn’t?
- What do I value most at this stage in life, now?
- What am I no longer willing to tolerate, now?
- What is most important to me, now?
- What parts of me do I want to meet, now?
As is written in In The AI Checklist, AI might automate the work, but it can’t replicate your moral judgment, emotional depth, or lived empathy
2. Inventory Your Energy (Not Just Your Skills)
List what drains you and what energises you. This isn’t just a feel-good exercise. Energy is the new currency of performance. If your role is draining your mental or emotional tank without recovery, you’re headed for trouble. Burnout often hides in plain sight, camouflaged as productivity. Cull activities and indeed friendships that drain your energy. Some people may no longer serve you and / or you can see them in a limited manner so as to suit you.
Career coach Dr. Susan Peppercorn, writing in Harvard Business Review, calls this an “Energy Audit.” She recommends tracking your week and rating tasks from +2 (energy gain) to -2 (energy drain). What you find may surprise you—and clarify your next steps.
3. Redefine Success
Forget climbing. Think nesting. The most fulfilled midlife professionals often move away from high-stress peak roles into advisory, mentoring, or portfolio careers—jobs with flexibility, freedom, and deeper social contribution.
In one Australian Men’s longitudinal study, participants over 50 ranked “flexibility,” “freedom,” and “fun” as more important than “title” or “prestige.” The pivot is real—and it’s not a failure. It’s gained wisdom, or if nothing else a realisation that what was important as defined success in our 30’s and 40’s is no longer important in our 50’ and 60’s. And that is perfectly fine!
4. Explore Side Hustles—Safely
Start small. You don’t need to launch the next Uber. Think weekend woodworking. Freelance consulting. Teaching online. Facilitating men’s groups. The Economic Times notes a rise in midlife “experience entrepreneurs” who turn hobbies and hard-won wisdom into income streams.
In Australia, men over 50 are now the fastest-growing demographic for new sole trader businesses, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS). Many cite “purpose” and “autonomy” as their core reasons for starting. In Sydney James, who recently left his high paying and pressurised corporate role in the pharmaceutical industry found himself retraining to become a paramedic and loving that role. But on the side, he started up a small consultancy to offer his expertise in Commercial Excellence, his prior role in the pharmaceutical industry, to SME businesses, who could not afford to hire a full-time expert like him.
- Build Psychological Safety Around You
5. Reconnect with Purpose
You don’t need therapy (though that’s fine too). You need someone to hold a mirror to your blind spots and help craft a plan. Everyone benefits from the process of coaching purely because our brains react to questions being asked of us, that we did not expect to be asked (i.e. from someone else). It allows us to articulate out loud our challenges but often find solutions to the same ones, often for the first time, in a safe space. Andrew May encourages executives to write a personal purpose statement that doesn’t mention money or title. Ask: “Why do I get out of bed each day?” Purpose is protective. It lifts you when routine fails.
As Viktor Frankl, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, famously said: “Those who have a ‘why’ to live, can bear almost any ‘how’.”
6. Build Psychological Safety—At Home and Work
Men, especially older men, often suffer in silence. A healthy pivot requires healthy conversations—with partners, mates, mentors. Surround yourself with people who let you be real. Don’t go it alone. Join a circle, a men’s shed, a purpose group. Build your tribe.
Dr Amy Edmondson, a Harvard professor and author of The Fearless Organisation, note in an interview on The Leadership Diet podcast that ‘flourishing only happens when fear is absent’. Fear is the Enemy of Flourishing and the hope for men above 50 is that we learn to live the second half of our life, on our own terms, i.e. we flourish.
But What If I Fail?
Let’s be real. The pivot is scary. It might come with a pay cut. A steep learning curve. Imposter syndrome. But it also comes with joy, freedom, and growth. “A ship in harbour is safe,” said John A. Shedd, “but that’s not what ships are built for.”
Besides, you’ve failed before—and survived. Probably while wearing a tie and pretending to love spreadsheets.
A recent study from the UK’s Resolution Foundation found that men over 50 who make career changes report higher life satisfaction within 18 months—even when the new roles paid less.
The risk, it turns out, isn’t pivoting. The risk is staying stuck.
Midlife reinvention isn’t a one-time event. It’s a gradual, deliberate practice. It’s the art of reconnecting to who you are—while gently letting go of who you were paid to be.
So, if you’re waking up tired, dreading Mondays, or just wondering “Is this it?”, take heart. The pivot playbook is not a career strategy—it’s a life one.
You’re not too late. You’re right on time.
There’s a reason the podcast Don’t Let the Old Man In resonates with thousands of men in their 50s. It speaks to the quiet war many fight against obsolescence, irrelevance, and a determination to navigate life’s crossroads with clarity and confidence. And likewise, if you’re reading this, you haven’t given up. You’re still curious. Maya Angelou once said, “If you’re always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” Midlife career change isn’t about being extraordinary. It’s about being aligned—with yourself.
Pod O’Sullivan is the host of the Don’t Let the Old Man In podcast. Listen on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or wherever you tune in. Find more thoughts on living gracefully (and disgracefully) in the second half of life at The Wisdom Vault, on LinkedIn, Substack and even (!) Instagram.
