45 and lost all motivation for work

[PrincessTuna]

I have a job. It's part time and the hours are excellent for childcare (lone parent with zero support). I earn enough to get by if I live modestly.

After 8 years of doing the job, I'm totally over it. I have new enthusiastic manager and team mates and I just feel weary.

I look at other jobs and the hours dont suit or the money isnt right, and I dont feel fired up by them.

It's such a shame, I used to love my job, felt proud of doing it well. Now I feel lost, stuck and fed up.

Has anyone else hit a wall like this? I wonder if its cos I know I'm trapped until kids are older. Or cos I detest my manager. Or cos I feel increasingly conscious of ageism now I'm experiencing it first hand :-(

I'm 35 and feel the same been in the same job for 16 years and am just done with it.

I have a 7 and 3 year old and I am thinking of doing a complete career change and going back to uni next September to do a healthcare related degree when eldest starts school. Would retraining be something you'd be interested in doing?

*That should say when youngest starts full time school

Or is it burn out from lockdowns and covid stress. I've read there's a term called 'languishing' that has come to the fore due to the pandemic. Essentially it is that feeling of muddling through without much progress or enthusiasm.

I’m feeling a bit like this.
I work part time and really love some aspects of my job. There are other parts that I am so over. Paper work, admin and box ticking exercises that I have simply lost all patience with.
I have zero interest in working full time. I’m lucky that I can choose not to at the moment.
I’m the same age as you so maybe it’s a phase that I’ll come out the other side of. Maybe when the kids are older and not taking up so much of my mental energy!

I could be you OP. I want to love my job and enjoy and be proud of what I do but I really don't. But pay, hours etc all work and I can't find the thing that I do want to do....

So watching this in hope someone wiser than us both turns up with some good advice.

I might be languishing. I prefer home working in terms of work/life balance but I am definitely someone who needs to be told I'm doing a decent job. Otherwise I slip into feeling like I'm a total imposter and failing!

Not sure what I would retrain as.

I have a friend who is a bit older than me and when she was my age she quit her well paid office job to work on the shop floor in a supermarket. She was just DONE with the churn of work and wanted the type of straightforward "I do this then go home". I can see the appeal but wouldnt be able to pay the bills or pension.

I'm 42 and have been feeling similar for a while now. In fact I was thinking about writing a similar post myself this morning, but then put it down to Monday morning blues.

I like my job, work with a lovely team and have a nice manager. It's not what I saw myself doing when I grew up, but I still don't know what I want to be.

I was wondering if it was an age thing. I've noticed the longer I have off work (long weekends, AL etc) the more I don't want to go back. I just want to retire now, but I have a long time ahead of me.

I'm just wondering if it's totally normal to struggle a bit as you come towards the middle of your working life. I'm no longer looking to excel at a career or to climb up a ladder. Not like I was thinking about in my 20's. I'm just plodding on and I'm tired now.

@Smartiepants79 I think mental load is another big factor here. Its too much. I do all the thinking at home. Then at work people who are junior and senior are running things by me cos of time served.

I cant handle a social life at the minute either. Aside from not having child free time. The idea of planning more things is draining.

Wonder if its depression. Or menopause - that seems to be the root of everything these days!

Agree @OrangeBananaFish I feel like I'm winding down for retirement but have decades of working left!

yes , been in mine 17 years this summer , the company has changed so much since i started . its got a horrible ethos , not allowed to think for ourselves anymore , iv gone from loving and enjoying my job to hating it , the only thing that keeps me there is the fact the hours are child friendly and i lack the confindence at nearly 49 to start looking again , im only part time 4 days a week .but even thats a struggle , i just hate it now , im just bored to death with it and honestly when i really have my low points i think to myself if they got rid of me and i became a single parent dole bum theyd be doing me a favour , which i know is a most unpopular way to think i know lol

I was always an enthusiastic worker, keen to do OT and call out, really enjoyed work but then i was furloughed for 4 months - i loved it!

I came back to work for a further 7 months, then i was laid off - i have zero intention of working again, i have a small pension and savings and i can get by with some cleaning, gardening jobs and renting out a room.

Life is too short to spend it making other other people wealthy.

Same! I have felt this way for years. But I think it’s a good thing to stop thinking about work the moment you log off. I know lots of people whose identity / self esteem is bound up in their work but I am not one of them.

I think the new manager will be contributing, as well as Covid languishing and feeling trapped.
DH says “People don’t leave jobs, they leave managers”. Seems to ring true if you only started feeling like this when she came in.
I had a job that was really hard graft but I liked my manager (no nonsense approach but I knew she respected me). She got promoted and her replacement was very “Do as I say” ?(even though she was work shy before her promotion). Once the second woman took over, I couldn’t stay. The work became unbearable because I didn’t feel I had the support or even respect of my manager, and I didn’t respect her. I did a side step move (no chance of promotion) and am much happier now.
I think if you’re stuck at work, it’s worth looking to find something out of work that brings you joy like a new hobby (not easy as a single parent I know but there’s plenty you could do from home). I just started weight lifting at a gym and I love it! Gives me a sense of confidence and progression outside work.

Definitely, the manager hasn't got a positive word to say about anything I do @ThePontiacBandit. I think they feel threatened by me and want to build their team from scratch but have inherited me as a spanner in the works!

They undermine me at every opportunity which makes me dread work.

@PrincessTuna

Definitely, the manager hasn't got a positive word to say about anything I do *@ThePontiacBandit*. I think they feel threatened by me and want to build their team from scratch but have inherited me as a spanner in the works!

They undermine me at every opportunity which makes me dread work.

had this same thing for a while at my place , new manager seems very different , but for the last year its felt like us oldies are good for doing the shit parts of the job and the young uni students who are never going to be sticking about for too long are given the good bits of it to do , plus they havent got the balls to complain ,so if we then complain we look like the moaners with the attitude problem . i only get by telling myself its 4 hours a day for 4 days of the week and praying things might be a bit different now theres a managment change .

Similar age to you op but I am currently not working sahm to young dc. I get can't any motivation up to apply for jobs (fortunately, current circumstances mean I don't have to) but I need to do something. Added to this, I have the complication of m/h issues (recently diagnosed) and I have posted a thread about being lonely and bored so perhaps looking to volunteer to get me out of the house.

I suspect the perimenopause is at work and is a large factor but part of it is that I feel I have woken up to how underappreciated I was a work, just a cog (admin work but most recent job had a fair bit of responsibility) and how draining it could be - I was either over or under stimulated and heavily monitored in two of the jobs. There was also the issue of office politics (hard for me to handle due to m/h issues). But overall, my sense of self esteem was higher than it is now.

No answers Op. I am dabbling with starting a low scale business up on-line and volunteering but I appreciate I am fortunate to be in a financial situation to attempt this as I honestly don't feel I have the energy required to retrain which is what some people do.

Not quite the same, I do enjoy my job for the main part, it doesn't challenge me much these days, but the work/life balance is wonderful. But I'm just done. My desire to push forward and achieve more is gone at 45. The only reason I have to push forward at this point is my goal to retire as early as I can and spend my time pleasing myself.

Yes, I am 48 and feeling increasingly like this. My job is great, very flexible, should in theory be interesting, but I am so incredibly bored and fed up with it all. All motivation has gone. I don't have motivation to apply for anything else either. Anything else would be less flexible, and I have the perfect set up for childcare at the moment. Another 20 years of this though

I have a friend who is a bit older than me and when she was my age she quit her well paid office job to work on the shop floor in a supermarket. She was just DONE with the churn of work and wanted the type of straightforward "I do this then go home".

I totally identify with this. I am so fortunate to have a good office job, but I daydream about being in a local job like your friend, that is an honest living. But these never quite pay the pensions etc. I also have to consider I'm not getting younger (when I was happy bussing tables and working late shifts as a teenager)

I think as we age you get more jaded by corporate life, childcare practicalities etc... and seek more societal purpose or direct impact as a human being. Also exhaustion from being 20, 30 years in an industry compounded by Covid despite more flexibility. I'm looking for suitable volunteering opportunties but not simply say, attend charity board meetings... and I don't have the time nor energy with full time work.

I'd also consider retraining but really not sure in what, I'm not a people person so I feel I'd end up in a similar situation. So my main motivation is to keep going and try to retire early.

Very similar here. Just feeling jaded & i’m actually in a career I enjoy. My focus now is getting enough in the pension to stop work at 55. Will be going down to 2/3 days a week at 50.

Maybe another thread, but how do you work out enough in pension to stop working entirely or at least cut back?

Especially DC pensions for many people, living longer but no visibility how long.

I’ve been nodding along to so many of these posts. I’m 43, my jobs fine, pays okay, the hours are flexible and I work 4 days per week. So all good…

Except I just can’t be bothered anymore. I don’t really care about the stuff I do (emails, meetings, write a report) and can’t muster up enthusiasm for any of it.

My team at work mainly consists of very enthusiastic 20 and 30 somethings. They’re intelligent, eager and actually seem to really care. A new initiative is announced and they’re all over it with loads of ideas, and I’m just thinking ‘yeah, we did something just like that 10 years ago and it didn’t really work’.

Retraining is kind of appealing but there’s nothing I’ve got a burning desire to do! The PP who said they feel like they’re winding down for retirement but still have 20+ years left on work has it spot on.

This is me. I used to love my job so much, I couldn't believe I got paid to do it.

Those days are long gone. I'll be going back to the office during the summer and I hope I'll be more enthusiastic when I'm on the ground and meeting people again. But come September every spare cent is going into my pension fund, and I'm looking for an exit and early retirement. I'm 51 doing my job for 16 years

Yes I feel the same. Been in the same job for 10 years and I’m 34. Keep being reminded how lucky I am to wfh and not have to do anything too strenuous but honestly I’m worn out. I honestly think I’m one of these people who are just not suited to working! Shame bills have to be paid

Same here have another 20'years until state retirement age and my puny workplace pensions are not enough to live on let alone pay the large remaining mortgage. It's flexible, relatively easy to do and I used to really love my job. But just cannot get motivated at the moment. Feel like I could happily retire now in my later forties and am knackered and regretting starting work so young in my teens. But like some pp have no idea what I would retrain as or want to do instead? Languishing is a good word for it.