“Unveiling the Hidden Crisis: Are Mid-Career Slumps the Unspoken Struggle of Writers?”
Ever felt like you’re sprinting on a treadmill, putting in all that effort yet getting nowhere? That exhausting realization is all too familiar, especially for professionals who’ve crossed the mid-career mark. For many—be it in writing, corporate work, or any other field—a mid-career slump can feel like wading through molasses, where ambition clashes headfirst with stagnation. You’ve amassed experience but are now grappling with restlessness—a longing for something more fulfilling. The truth is, not all careers follow the tidy “ladder” approach; writing is a rollercoaster ride often marked by unpredictable peaks and valleys, and sometimes you find yourself stuck at the same elevation for what feels like forever. If you’re questioning whether you’ve outgrown your current role—or worse, if the thought of your next project fills you more with dread than excitement—you might just be facing that dreaded mid-career crisis. So, what’s the way out? How do we shift gears and reignite that creative spark? Let’s delve into strategies to navigate this tricky terrain and find our footing once more. LEARN MORE.
Where do we go from here?
If you examine professional careers in almost any other industry — medicine, law, finance, corporate — you’ll find something called the “mid-career slump.”
This occurs when a professional has spent significant time in their chosen career and has gained considerable experience and expertise but feels restless and stuck.
They may want to move further up the career ladder, but find it hard to access the education and time they need to make that happen. Or maybe their career no longer fulfills them, and they want to go in a new direction — but aren’t sure how to manage that.
Usually, a writing career doesn’t follow the same step-by-step trajectory as other types of careers. We don’t “get promoted,” so to speak. We go from project to project, hoping each one will be better than the last.
Often, the only thing that propels us to a new level (the writer’s form of a promotion) is if one project breaks out and takes us there.
But what if there is no breakout project? What if things stay stubbornly the same launch after launch?
Thought leader and author Vin Vashishta notes that professionals in this stage can face a mid-career crisis, during which they struggle with motivation and feel like their accomplishments don’t bring the same level of satisfaction as they used to:
“You’ve navigated change before and adapted to continue moving forward. This is a different category. A mid-career crisis happens when you’ve outgrown your current career.”
This hits home for me as a writer — this idea of “outgrowing your current career.”
Do you find that publishing your next book doesn’t hold the same possibility as it used to? Is your motivation to even work on that next book lagging?
If so, you may be in a mid-career crisis.
The question is, how do we break out of it?
From starting out to starting over?
I am no longer a beginning writer.
I remember what it was like to be one. Back then, it was all about the thrill of possibility. What if I could publish a…
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