Have you ever felt like you’re doing everything right in your job, yet there’s no clear path forward? You’re excelling, meeting targets, and making an impact, but you’re still stuck in your job. The concept of being “stuck” in your career often happens when your success becomes a barrier to growth. In this blog, we’ll explore why this happens, how to identify when you’re in a career rut, and, most importantly, how to break free and unlock new opportunities for growth.
Meet Mike: A Victim of His Own Excellence
Mike is a top-performing sales professional at a leading process automation company. He’s consistently met his targets, built strong customer relationships, and earned a reputation as the go-to guy for clients.
Spending 80% of his time on the road, Mike is deeply involved in external engagements. However, this also means he has limited interaction with his internal peers and minimal visibility among senior leadership. Despite his stellar performance, Mike feels stuck in the job. He aspires to move into a leadership role, but his current job keeps him on the fringes of the organization’s internal ecosystem.
The Dilemma: No Incentive to Change the Status Quo
From the company’s perspective, there’s no incentive to move Mike. He’s highly effective in his role, and replacing him would be a risk. This makes a promotion or shift unlikely, even though Mike’s personal growth has plateaued.
The Competency Trap: When Success Becomes a Setback
HR experts refer to this phenomenon as a competency trap. It happens when individuals become so good at their roles that they’re seen as irreplaceable, but that excellence keeps them from exploring new challenges. Over time, this can create a deep sense of stagnation and helplessness.
Have You Been There, Too?
If you’ve ever felt like your competence was holding you back from greater growth, you’re not alone. This is a common experience for high performers across industries. The paradox lies in being both essential and overlooked for new opportunities. Is there a way out of this career stagnation? Let’s explore the conscious steps you can take to move forward.
Why You Might Feel Stuck in Your Job?
Feeling stuck in your job? You’re not alone. It happens to many of us at some point in our careers, and sometimes, we don’t even realize why it’s happening. Here are a few reasons why you might be feeling stuck.
- You’ve become too comfortable in your job and stopped challenging yourself.
- Your hard work is going unnoticed because you’re not visible to the right people.
- Your current job role no longer aligns with your career goals or aspirations.
- There are no clear growth opportunities or a promotion path in your organization.
- You’re too good at your job, making it difficult for the company to move you into new roles.
- You haven’t communicated your career goals or aspirations to your leadership.
- Fear of change or failure is holding you back from seeking new opportunities.
- External factors like company restructuring or leadership changes are blocking your growth.
How to Overcome Being Stuck in a Job with No Progression
An exploration of why we get stuck in our careers and the steps we can take to grow, evolve, and move forward is discussed below.
The S-Curve of Growth
As you embark on a new job, you start off with a learning phase where the growth/productivity tends to be slow before it takes a steep rise and hits a plateau. If you recognize this path, you’ll know that it’s a great idea to switch to a new curve (not necessarily a new job) when you are at the top of this S curve.
Often, the temptation is to overstay when you are on the top of the curve and feed off your past successes or carry on with a sheer sense of entitlement. The moot point is that when learning stops, growth stops too.
Creating Your Own Opportunities
Not all organizations are geared up to meet your personal needs and aspirations. It is up to you to make conscious efforts to create chances for yourself. Organizational contexts are dynamic, and if you have your ears to the ground, you’ll notice these windows of opportunity and make your own moves. It could be a cross-functional opportunity to round off your profile or a strategic project that your leadership may be working on.
Even adverse situations, such as staff turnover or key leadership transitions/exits, may present prospects for you to grab. Growth need not be vertical, and opting to move sideways could also offer you plenty of opportunities to develop. Looking for opportunities within your organization is indeed a good starting point.
Step One: Speak Up
To begin with, you’ll need to let your ambitions be known to your leadership and key stakeholders. This is critical in carving out mindshare amongst the people who matter. Asking or even demanding those coveted roles is perfectly alright. One of my observations on people who made it big in their careers is that they were willing to punch above their weight. Their audacity leads them to the next opportunity that they weren’t ideally ready for.
They took on the stretch roles and worked hard and smart to fill the gap rather than getting stuck. Richard Branson’s quote, “If somebody offers you an amazing opportunity but you are not sure you can do it, say yes, then learn how to do it later!” is, in essence, a great mindset to have.
Personal Rebranding: More Than Just Performance
Performance is “necessary but not sufficient” for success and growth. People, akin to products, need to work on their brands. In this context, self-promotion is not a bad thing. The challenge is that not all of us are good at this. Branding efforts do take time, and staying the course is key without expecting quick wins. So, be patient even if colleagues and seniors do not notice immediately, but with time, perceptions are likely to shift.
I want to highlight an example of this young HR Manager who created a personal brand. He took up a number of initiatives whilst he was in the midst of HR transformation projects in his role. He was also an organizer at the city’s HR forum, wrote a book (got a Management guru to write the foreword), and shared learnings and best practices within his professional networks. His ability to juggle so many tasks was truly admirable, and he is sure to go places.
From Stuck to Free: The Mindset Shift
Discovering that you are stuck is a key realization. Being in a role/title or organization for a long time isn’t the only metric. It’s also how you feel doing that role that needs to be taken into account. First, if you feel you are not learning anything or you can just turn up and do it with ease, it indicates you are already in a comfort zone. Second, if you do not enjoy the tasks associated with it or the results, then it’s a clear sign of boredom. Third, if there are no recognitions coming your way, then you know your contributions don’t mean anything to the organization either.
Growth Requires Action
“Growth is painful, change is painful, but feeling stuck in a place where you don’t belong is even more painful.”
In the marathon of a career, we all hit points where we feel stuck. It could be the role, the culture, the boss, or even ourselves. What matters is that we recognize it early and take conscious, courageous action.
