Two Ways To Avoid Career Stagnation

Often times when we get comfortable in a role, we put down roots—and well, get even more comfortable. We can make sense of a job that is known. It’s predictable. It’s safe. It’s autopilot amenable. Career autopilot can serve a purpose. It helps us shift priorities when life happens. When we have babies or losses. When we run marathons or tend to injuries from said marathons.

But something happens when we sleepwalk through our careers.

We wake up:

Writing the same deck for the umpteenth time with a new set of logos.

Falling down the same rabbit holes because a senior leader heard a buzzword.

Giving in to decisions that aren’t aligned with our values.

And we wonder, "How did I get here?" The answer is simple—you forgot or chose not to do these two things.

1. Focus on learning and growth
When we identify how we want to grow in our careers and then step onto the path to doing so, we boost our energy and our expertise—coming up with new clues for longer-term goals. Lucky for us, there are a multitude of ways to address our development areas that range from hundreds of dollars to free. Reignite your learning with workshops, classes, conferences, conversations, YouTube videos, Meetups, books, podcasts—and any other way you can think to possibly digest content in the coming year.

2. Network and connect without an agenda
One critical component to a thriving career is your network, otherwise known as the relationships you nurture over years. When we get comfortable in a job, we can disappear on our network. Then, when it comes time to either look for a new job or attempt to get unstuck, we must—yet again—start from zero with our people. What could have been ongoing watering and tending to the garden becomes a daunting and draining task. When you continue to make time for your contacts, colleagues and the people you meet doing weird and interesting things, you grow, you gain energy, you cultivate relationships, you help others and most importantly—you feel connected.

Exercise, clean eating and rest are essential for your physical health—just as continued learning and ongoing networking are key for your career health. When you are in the space of momentum, energy and self-awareness that flows from these two things, you can make ongoing subtle shifts in your focus, rather than waking up in a rut one day that will require a monumental shift. Make the time. Choose the things and the people that ignite you so that watering the garden feels nurturing to you, too! And then, reap the rewards of the spring bloom that shows up in the form of community, possibilities and opportunities you never expected to appear.

Are You in a Mid-Career Crisis

Do you show up for work every day feeling like you’re living the wrong life? Are you pretending to care about what you do all day, only to come home exhausted from the charade? Does your work require you to always be on, without time to actually enjoy the life you’re funding?

Many of my clients come to me at these very moments. They’re stuck, lost and not sure how to move forward.

They have 15 (or more) years experience in a skill they no longer want to use.

They’re so depleted that they no longer know what they’re good at OR what they enjoy doing.

They’re hooked into a lifestyle tied to their current salary.

They’re worried that leaving this "good on paper" job or company will look like a failure.

It’s not exactly the set of circumstances that opens the door to new possibilities and creative ideas. These clients often appear in my office after a health issue has taken hold—pneumonia, a debilitating fall or injury, chronic pain or even panic attacks. After resisting their intuition and ignoring their discontent, their bodies spring into action to wake them from their paralysis. They finally see it. It’s time to make a change.

If this sounds like you, know that there is a way out. You have more options than you realize. Take the following first steps to get unstuck.

1. Identify the fear.
What are you afraid will happen if you make a change? And what will not happen? Make a list of your fears so you can take a closer look at what is preventing you from taking action. You can also begin speaking with friends, colleagues and professionals who can work with you to see if there’s truly any evidence to validate those fears. It’s both unsettling and liberating to discover that the worries that have been holding you back for years are not grounded in reality.

2. Create space.
In order to begin moving forward, I recommend setting new boundaries in your current role. For some this means committing to leave at 6 PM daily and for others it’s sealing the laptop shut over the weekend and on vacations. Still for others, if they have the financial means, it’s making a clean break to take some time off. In this newfound space you can move toward things you want to learn—take classes or workshops—or do the things that bring you joy. You can take time to reflect on the things that you do well or the moments throughout your career that ignited you. You can tend to your body with exercise, rest and simply being you without the expectations of figuring out who that is every minute and constantly making meaning.

3. Deploy your A-Team.
Who are the people in your circle transforming their lives, their companies and their industries? Who was it that pushed you out of the nest before you felt ready to deliver the presentation? Sure, you were bruised, but you practiced, you nailed it and you learned what was possible. Find those people. Let them know that you’re ready for a change and that even though you don’t know what it is yet, you will reach out to them for support from time to time. If you don’t have any of those people in your life, it might be a clue as to why you’re so stuck. Look for inspiration from books, podcasts and TED Talks, then slowly work your way into networking and connecting with bold-thinking people who will support your seemingly crazy ideas and provide feedback on how to make them seem less crazy to you.

When you acknowledge you’re in a mid-career crisis, I recommend you do not use it to add the pressure to find immediate answers. Answers rarely show up as soon as you realize you need them. It’s a process that, as with anything, you can choose to internally market as torture or see as fun and enlightening. During my career transition from digital marketing to coaching, I set up a minimum of one networking meeting a week with people who were working on interesting projects that could potentially never intersect with what I was doing, but the inspiration, connection and flurry of possibilities carried me through the rest of the week (and my multiyear transition) with energy to spare.

What Would You Do With A Blank Slate?

Writing on January 2nd is hard. The possibilities are endless—and yet so are the expectations. I want to jump into my year with a karate chop slicing through a cinder block, but I’m still processing my holiday break reflection, uncertainty about the new year to come and my exhaustion from entertaining two kids for nearly two weeks straight. That’s a lot of kid time for this working mom (Respect, stay at home parents.).

By far the most challenging part of starting fresh this week is starting fresh. Taking a step into a pure white canvas and bringing to it my inevitable mess. My optimistic, ambitious, well-meaning, out of practice, fearful, unrested mess. In my head there’s a dance party of perfect, pristine images that refuse to connect to words. So my goal right now: let them dance. Be where I am, which may be exactly where I need to be.

And where am I? 2018 was an exciting and successful year professionally, but an intense and exhausting year on the personal front. On top of living the busy life of a working mom of two, caregiving for my uncle with Parkinson’s kicked up a notch this year and moved into the foreground of my personal priorities. Heading into 2019 with even bigger goals for both business growth and writing projects while continuing to navigate my uncle’s care—leaves me with the worry that doing all I have planned may not be possible.

This is the fear that winks at my empty page, my blinking cursor, my new year, my blank slate.

But I don’t need to choose it as I often did in 2018. I fed that beast with stress and resentment and false helplessness. That is simply not who I am, but I was tired and angry. My work, my practice this year is to forgive myself for stewing and to excise that thought with surgical precision.

In the face of my new year with endless possibilities, I vow to:

1. Actively choose to believe what I want is possible.

2. See the beauty in the mess.

The mess means I’m bringing all that I am, including my fear to the work. This is what it looks like when you forge forward despite all the reasons not to do so. There will always be excuses to stand in one place. You need not look far to find them. When you ignore them, step into the uncertainty and challenge the naysaying with your action, you can find new confidence in course correcting back to your unique path. My path includes uncovering my fears and my solace in writing and inspiring and being inspired by my incredible clients—all while triaging multiple calls a day from and about my uncle. It is both beauty and mess and also fraught with lessons that are mine for the learning.

How to Powerfully Close Out 2018

One evening last week, I was wrapping up my day of coaching sessions and writing some emails to clients while sitting on my bed. My puppy, Taco, who is now six months old, was lying across my feet, and I was working away to the tunes of my daughter’s piano and voice lesson in the living room. I snapped a photo of Taco and sent it to my husband.

“You have the best job,” He said

“By design,” I responded

I welled up with pride. I created this. I had a vision. I wasn’t sure it was possible, and I made it happen.

Now, as I close out my year and begin anew, I move through a process that helps me acknowledge the seemingly small (but truly big) successes like this one, find compassion for the moments I went off course and set intentions for the year to come.

Here’s how it works:

1. Celebrate your wins.
Whether it’s closing a new client, getting a new job or promotion, defending your dissertation, starting your own business, getting married, getting divorced, surviving cancer—you are all out there doing incredible things. Make a list of all of the big things along with the smaller moments that somehow felt transformational. Honor them. Celebrate them. Notice the ways you brought your unique gifts to those accomplishments and how what others may see as failures could show up on your wins list.

2. Be grateful.
Who in your life has shown up for you this year, without even a request? What are the moments that felt like luck or some divine intervention? Spend time on an accounting of all the things you have that bring you joy. It may not be all you want in life, but take time to focus on what you may be taking for granted—like for some it could be good health. Think about all that your health affords you to do in your life and notice how that can minimize the want or the hunger for what you do not yet have.

3. Forgive yourself.
No, not everything went as planned. You lost your cool. You yelled. You fumbled in your moment to shine. But you’re also human, and humans are flawed (sorry to break this news). In order to forgive yourself for what did and didn’t happen in this past year, I recommend writing yourself a forgiveness letter. And go deep. What compassionate words would you use to calm yourself for saying that cruel thing to your friend out of jealousy or for not listening to your partner because you had to finish an email or for knowing a relationship was over, but letting it go on too long? How would you talk to a close friend about those things? When you feel like it’s complete, read it out loud. Feel the emotions. Let the tears flow. With acknowledgment and forgiveness (and frequent reminders of both), you can work to leave these things in your past and not use them as the foundation for your new year.

4. Choose a theme for the new year.
You may still be in holiday mode and not yet ready to plan out your 2019. That’s OK. Or maybe you’ve made New Year’s resolutions in the past that you gave up on somewhere between January 5th and 12th. Instead of that approach—I like to start my year off by choosing a word that will be my theme for the year. It can give you direction and help you choose how to move forward in your role or your business. It can also serve as your mantra in moments when you’re working towards a big change. I asked my daughters what they would choose as words to guide their 2019, and my seven year old jumped up and shouted, “Oh, I know mine! Except for food—ADVENTUROUS!” I can’t wait to see how this comes to be in her life, and I more than sort of hope that it does spill over into food.

As I do this reflection in my own life and then multiply it in my work with clients, the turning over of years has become one of the most simple and powerful rituals I use to gain clarity and momentum. It helps me to define what success looks like for me—knowing that my wins may sound either lofty or mundane to others—and that truly, none of that matters. In the spirit of my 2019 word, LISTEN, it prompts me to get quiet, observe, gather the clues and then alternate baby steps and giant leaps on my own unique path.