I recently had a client tell me they felt stuck in their career.  A sort of career stagnation or sense of spinning wheels.  I know this sensation isn’t a rarity, so just what do you do when you feel stuck in your career? Firstly make sure that you don’t make the feeling wrong or bad.  When you do this you demonise feeling stuck and then ironically the stuckness prevails, once you stop demonising the feeling very often, you then discover what’s underneath it.

There are a variety of reasons why we can feel stuck in our career.

We don’t necessarily have a career ladder anymore.  You know that nice straight-line path, all the moves and promotions mapped out.  Now it’s more likely that a career starts off in one domain and ends up in a completely different one.  My career has spanned 30 years.  I started out working in a laboratory with chemicals.  It’s also included running a technical library, searching patents, managing projects, working in different countries, leading teams and departments.  For me, there is a theme, analysis, and releasing and utilising the potential from the ‘bodies’.  Whether that was a chemical, a company, a business or an individual; but on the face of it given some of my job titles, it wouldn’t necessarily look like a logical career path.

Having read the common reasons we feel stuck, you may have identified which one fits.  If you want to put yourself in a space that feels more useful and productive then I suggest you do anything that energises you.  Daily do something, anything that makes you feel alive.  It doesn’t even have to be work or career orientated.  Then secondly look at what’s going on in your head.  What’s the narrative that’s running?  What’s the overall attitude you’re walking around with?  Maybe it’s time to re-write the story.

Allow yourself to reconnect to your imagination.  Watch young children, and their imagination lets them be all sort of things.  One minute they’re making pizza, the next they’re a doctor fixing you up, and as they leap around the garden they’re a superhero saving the world.   Now you could recall all those jobs you fantasised about when you were 4,5 or 6 and see what the theme was.  And you could tap into your imagination now through creativity.

Create anything you fancy, just for the fun and pleasure of it.  Don’t make it a big deal; it doesn’t have to be about your career; it doesn’t even have to be perfect.  You could paint, draw, take photographs, write poetry, do woodwork, make a cake.  Just do it in a relaxed, non-judgemental fashion.  At the very least you’ll have some fun.  And very often it helps unlock something within you.  I’m not saying it will instantly solve your career stuckness, but it will take you forwards.

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