Sometimes you realize: life has brought you somewhere in the wrong place. Your classmates have long made their way into the world, Tom received a prize, and the interview with Alice was published in a thick business magazine... You sit in a passing position without any prospects for a year in a row - and there is no movement, no breeze, no breath.
You can justify yourself that it is easy and pleasant for you here. But this is not an excuse: after all, when work turns into a routine and you do it automatically, boredom comes first, followed by emotional burnout. Not to mention the fact that in such line positions, incomes quite rarely correspond to market prices.
Even though you, reading about the comfort zone, mentally send us away, there is no need to deceive yourself – one day your inertia and unwillingness to change something can lead you down a very crooked path. Until this happens, we need to act!
10 reasons why your career has "stopped"
Let's start with "making a diagnosis" – after all, in order to prescribe the right treatment, you first need to try to understand what, in fact, we are going to be "treated" for. Why is career growth paused?
You have stopped in your development and are not evolving
If your tools are hopelessly outdated, you are not using artificial intelligence and numerous software solutions of recent years that allow you to speed up work and improve its quality... Why? Maybe you can't, or maybe you're convinced that all these new things don't really work. True, you haven't tried it, but you supposedly know it for sure.
You don't understand where your profession is heading
Regular conferences, lectures, seminars, and forums on your topic pass by your attention, so you are not aware of new trends. I don't really want to - and this will do, won't it?
Responsibility is your enemy
You do not take on additional tasks, and any attempts by the management to "hang" some new task around your neck are met with protest or sabotage. If you do something, then frankly half-heartedly, after all, they will not pay extra for it (the option "work is not a wolf, it will not run into the forest").
You do not satisfy your superiors
More and more often, the results of your work do not satisfy the management: at best, you are just poked in weaknesses and "mistakes", at worst, you will also have to redo everything, and then dismissal looms.
Your ambitions are invisible
It may very well be that you see yourself as the head of a separate department and a big boss in a high office! Then you would show them all how to do things! It's a pity that in order to be in this highest office and get the right to give orders, you first need to learn how to carry them out efficiently. And you have difficulties with this, so the boss does not even suspect that you are ambitious.
Specifics of corporate culture
In some companies, career growth depends not only on personal qualities, but also on certain actual indicators (for example, seniority, access to classified information or corporate secrets, etc.).
You are spoiled by modesty
Modesty adorns a person, but only when there are no other adornments. If you don't talk about your victories and don't ask for a new, unfamiliar front of work, no one will ever know that you can do more. Also over time, you will forget how to do it – motivation will disappear.
You don't know how to move forward
Sometimes it happens that you seem to have been working for a long time, but you don't know the inner workings. In some organizations, certain actions need to be taken for new steps on the career ladder. If you don't do this, then you will die as a junior assistant to the senior courier, relatively speaking.
You're burned out
You are so tired that life is not happy, the world around you seems gray, there is zero motivation. How to be effective here?
You have other priorities
It is impossible to go in one direction and look in the opposite direction. Children and university are very important, but you can't make a career like that.
What to do about it?
- You need to figure out why exactly you are not succeeding. To do this, you can conduct a SWOT and PESTEL analysis yourself and find out what is wrong with you, how to correct your own weaknesses and make the best use of your strengths. Don't you know how? No problem: either study or go to a career specialist!
- You can try to get feedback from your boss – whoever knows, but he knows better than anyone what is wrong with you and what needs to be corrected in order to briskly fly up the career steps. Even strict and "not sparing" feedback is an important source of information and an opportunity to change something in yourself for the better.
- You need a plan. A plan is always needed! With its help, you can understand what you are missing, what skills you need to work on, what you need to do at the preparation stage, with whom it would be nice to establish relationships in order to gain experience. Maybe they don't notice you? This is a reason to conduct a little investigation and find out how to behave in order to be noticed.
- A conversation with HR can be useful - he, with the right approach, will tell you all the secrets and teach the intricacies of career growth in your field (sometimes in a particular company). There is no need to be shy and doubt: by showing your ambitions, you, on the contrary, will demonstrate your best sides, desire to grow and develop. Who knows, it is possible that the next time a person is needed for a responsible position, it may be you!
- Take on something, take the initiative. At the same time, try to choose a direction in such a way as to "pump" the necessary and useful skills — at the same time not fall asleep in order to show your best side. God forbid you to take on hopeless and "dead" cases - those that drag on for years and serve as the main source of staff turnover! It is better to figure out what is important for the company. If there is nothing suitable, it doesn't matter — shift the focus a little and do what is important to your boss personally and fits into the Procrustean bed of his KPI.
- Study, and learn again. Just first, figure out what exactly. How to understand which skills and competencies are important and useful? The experience of colleagues and participation in specialized conferences can help you here. Inspires!
Finally, the main thing. If there are no growth positions in your company or your bosses have long written you off, it doesn't matter. Perhaps it's time for you to find yourself a new vacancy in another company? If so, then again you have a direct road to career specialists - learn how to pass an interview and write a cool resume!
