Author: Lucy Gower / Source: Lifehack
Have you ever caught yourself in a daydream where you’ve gone for that upcoming promotion and you’re now the boss at work? Or how about the one where you’ve summoned up all your courage to quit your job and live your dream? Or when you’ve changed career path to do what really makes you happy?
Then you’ve snapped back to reality and realized that you’re not the boss, not living your dream and not even happy in the career path that you’re on.
Over the years I’ve worked with hundreds of individuals who’ve told me they feel stuck in their careers, that something had to change for them to break free and be happy but they lacked the confidence to take that step. My mission is to make sure that nobody feels stuck in their career because of a momentary lapse in bravery that’s dragged on for too long.
Vera is one of those who feel stuck in her career.
She’s been working in the same role for 17 years. She started young and progressed quickly. Although she’s successful and the envy of her peers, she is bored, restless and feels that there’s something missing. She can’t quite pinpoint why or what, but she knows that that she’s not fulfilling her purpose, that she feels stuck and is not sure what to do to move herself forward.
Sounds familiar? Read on to find out how you can stop feeling stuck in your career, break free and get ahead at work. If you stay until the end I’ll also let you in on Vera’s story.
Here are my top ten tips for becoming unstuck, breaking free and getting ahead at work.
1. Make Time for You
If you’re feeling stuck, frustrated or unhappy at how your career is panning out, the first step is to work out why.
Maybe you’ve arrived in your current career by accident and haven’t ever made time to deliberately think or plan what you’d love to do and how you’d get there.
Prioritizing time to think is the first step you need take to stop feeling stuck and start getting ahead. Book some time into your diary where you can have an uninterrupted meeting with yourself. This is your thinking time.
Work out what makes you happy at work, what doesn’t and where you might want to go. Decide on the steps you want to take to progress your career in the direction that you want it to take.
For example, are there training days, evening courses or online learning that you can do? Have you considered getting a mentor to help you get ahead?
By booking in a meeting with yourself, (I have a client who calls it her ‘meeting with Marvin’, the android from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy with a brain the size of a planet) it signals it’s important (to you and your colleagues) and also stops others spotting a gap in your diary and filling it with a meeting.
2. Grow Your Network Before You Need It
Who you know is more important than what you know for career progression. Don’t wait until you’re feeling stuck in your career to start expanding your networks. Do it now.
Adam Grant the author of ‘Give and Take’, says you’re 58% more likely to get a new job through your weak ties than through your strong ones. Your strong ties are those in your immediate circle whom you interact with often. Your weak ties are your friends of friends. They move in different circles to you, they know different people, make different connections and are more likely to introduce you to new and different opportunities.[1]
When I was thinking about setting up my current company Lucidity, I turned up to every networking event, I drank a lot of coffees with a lot of different people to understand what they did, to ask for advice, to unpick what their problems were and look for opportunities for collaboration and connections.
It paid off because when I launched my business, I let my network know how I could help them and soon I had my first clients.
Pay attention to building and nurturing your networks, focus on how you can add value to others – that’s where your next career opportunity is most likely to come from.
3. Surround Yourself by People Who Inspire You
According to Tim Ferriss, ‘You are the average of the five people you most associate with’ and his associations with different people ebbs and flows depending on what he’s working on and trying to achieve.[2]
For example, if you are trying to be fitter, it’s easier if you hang around with people who love doing exercise – they help you to up your game.
If you want that promotion, a career change or to set up your own business seek out people who are excelling at it already. They’ll have valuable things to teach you about breaking free and getting ahead and they’ll also help you to up your game.
4. Work on Your Personal Brand
Jeff Bezos defines personal brand as ‘what people say about you when you’re not in the room’. People will talk about you when you are not in the room anyway, so you might as well be deliberate about what you’d like people to say!
Your personal brand isn’t about pretending to be something you’re not. It’s about being your best ‘real you’. It’s about owning your strengths and being purposeful about how you want to be perceived by others.
What do…
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