There’s a comedian named Iliza Shlesinger who has a special on Netflix called Elder Millennial. In it, she describes something I realized about myself a few years ago – that I was indeed a Millennial, but I just barely made the cut.
Depending on what source you read, the Millennial generation starts somewhere between 1980 and 1982. I was born in 1983. So I’m one of the senior Millennials, the first of my generation. Or as Iliza puts it, I’m an “Elder Millennial”.
A changing world
My particular cohort of Millennials grew up during the transition from the analog age to the digital age. Our first phone calls were on land lines, our bank accounts required deposit slips and we used card catalogues to find library books. From movies and pop culture, we developed reasonable expectations for our future: (straight) dating followed by (straight) marriage followed by kids followed by grandkids; college followed by an entry-level job followed by promotions followed by retirement and a pension. While certainly an oversimplification, most of us my age and older expected life to be pretty formulaic: a straightforward, linear progression.
Then in the 90s and 2000s, around when I was in high school, things started to change dramatically. Technological innovation began disrupting jobs and the economy. It changed how we performed basic tasks in ways that had never been imagined before. Broader, more inclusive concepts of love, relationship, marriage, family and gender began to take hold in the mainstream. While the world is always evolving, it’s the speed and intensity of these shifts that is really worth exploring.
Careers
For example, careers look very different today from what earlier generations experienced. Nowadays, a career path is uncertain and far from secure. The average Canadian will have 15 different jobs in their lifetime. Technology has always disrupted the workforce, but automation has taken off at new speeds. Artificial intelligence is further revolutionizing the workforce. Lifelong education is a necessity. The gig economy rules, and work can be precarious.
People are increasingly embracing the new economy as a lifestyle. It offers more flexibility, independence, choice, and variety of experiences. We can travel and work remotely. Entrepreneurship is accessible and popular.
Many of the other developments in our society have similarly opened up new options for us. From love and relationships to education and recreation, it’s all changed.[1]
Making it up as we go
But this new world, which offers more freedom and room to claim for yourself, can also be very scary and lonely. There’s no roadmap for navigating it. And whether you’re a Millennial like me, or a Baby Boomer or Gen Xer, we’re all grappling with the choices and decisions that come with this rapidly changing world.
How do you decide who you want to be, what you want to do and how you will build your life? How do you find your way through an incredibly complicated and challenging world? These are the questions that I have struggled with and that led me to coaching.
Coaching
Through coaching, I was supported in creating the tools and resources to answer those questions myself. I developed my inner muscles for coming to my own conclusions about life. Coaching did not give me answers to big questions. It didn’t dilute the choices in front of me. Rather the opposite – it amplified those choices by exposing me to an even broader set of choices I didn’t know I had. And it empowered me to make those choices myself.
I believe that having choice is essential to our dignity as human beings. And when we are empowered, choice becomes opportunity and possibility. This is what coaching gave me and what I offer as a coach – to build our lives from an empowered place. In this DIY world, choice can feel like gaping into an abyss. Or choice can serve as an opportunity to write our own empowering story.
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[1] I feel it’s important to note that this is a rather privileged life that I am describing, and most people in our world are not so economically or socially privileged.