Neglecting Your Own Needs
Feeling stuck? The main reason could be that you arent taking enough breaks from work, or youre spending too much time working instead of enjoying your free time. Whatever the case, if youre feeling stressed and overwhelmed, its best to prioritize your own needs and put others aside even if its just for a moment.
Taking time off from work can actually lead to greater productivity and creativity later on. In fact, studies have shown that workers who take time off every few weeks experience higher levels of motivation and satisfaction. So whether youre planning a vacation or taking a break from work for a couple of days, make sure to take advantage of these benefits!
Surround Yourself With 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 hes working on and trying to achieve.
For example, if you are trying to be fitter, its easier if you hang around with people who love doing exercisethey 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. Theyll have valuable things to teach you about breaking free and getting ahead.
Do You Ever Feel Stuck
Do you sense stuck in your life and career? You may feel as though you are standing still, that your work picks are preventing you from growing, or that your life is meaningless. Youre lost and perplexed and cant see how to move forward.
One of the main causes of stress in life is the feeling of being stuck. It has negative health impacts that are getting worse. The surface will eventually overpower you and harm your mental health after developing with time into fear and anxiety.
Also Check: What Are Career And Technical Education Classes
You’re Outside Of Your Comfort Zone
You may know what you need to do to become unstuck but feel uncomfortable moving forward. If it’s the first time that you’re testing a skill or behavior, for example, you might not know what to do exactly. You could be fighting self-doubt or perfectionism. Fear making a mistake or fear having a less than perfect result can hold you back.
What To Do When You’re Stuck In Your Career
The Indeed Editorial Team comprises a diverse and talented team of writers, researchers and subject matter experts equipped with Indeed’s data and insights to deliver useful tips to help guide your career journey.
Being satisfied with your career is a major component of overall happiness for many people. Professional satisfaction comes from feeling valued and finding meaning in your work. When you no longer feel happy with your job, you may wonder how to address these feelings in a constructive way. In this article, we discuss what it means to be stuck in your career, how to tell if you’re stuck in your career and what you can do to address these feelings and move forward.
Don’t Miss: Can’t Decide What Career Path To Take
Is Being Stuck Really Such A Bad Thing
Is it really so bad to be stuck in the status quo? After all, not everyone can be a superstar, right? Whats wrong with living a quiet life, with not many turns and twists and just going with the flow?
Truethere is not much fun in this, but there is not much disappointment, anxiety, stress, and ill-ambition either. Life is easy and uncomplicated.
So why do we keep hearing over and over from the greats that staying is one place is not a good thing?
Tony Robbins gives us an elegantly simple answer to this question:
If you are not growing, you are dying.
Progress equals happiness, he says. Thats because reaching a goal is satisfying but only temporarily. Life is not about achieving the goals, life is about who you become in pursuit of those goals.
There you have itstaying in one place makes us unhappy.
We all know that the comfort zone can be great. Its like a warm old blanket you wrap around yourself on a cold winter night, cuddled in front of your favorite TV show. But just because something feels comfortable, does it mean its ok to stick to it forever?
Progress equals happiness, remember.
You may not even fully be aware of the small voice in the back of your mind thats been bugging you, but you better learn to listen carefullybecause you may wake up one day and realize that your productive life is gone, and you havent achieved many of the things you wanted for yourself.
In Conclusion: The Path To Stop Feeling Stuck In Life
Your thoughts. Your job. Your community. Your relationships.
All of these paint a pretty complete picture of why you might be feeling asking, “Why am I stuck?”
The thing is, you have latent power available to change each of these realities and put a dent in that “stuck feeling.”
Deep down, you already know what to do when you’re feeling stuck in life.
If you start small, you can begin to chip away at whatâs holding you back. Before you know it, youâre a human being emerging from the statue that youâve been living in.
Becoming human again is what itâs all about.
Regain your humanity by realizing just how much possibility you still have.
And then seize the moment and do something about it.
Liked What You Read? Get the Latest Posts In Your Inbox â
Jordan Brown
Categories
Read Also: Womens Plus Size Career Tops
What To Do After You’re Unstuck
Congratulations! Youâve unstuck your life. You’ve broken the status quo. Now what?
The next logical step that you could do is to prevent yourself from ever being stuck in life and career again in the future. Think long term.
This requires goal setting, good planning and preparation, and commitment in executing the plan. We have written an extensive guide on how to do this, along with the actionable steps that you can follow to go from zero to hero and achieve your life goals.
The guide is built around the idea of creating your ideal career path, but you can also use it to plan your roadmap to pursue your life goal. It’s like hiring a life coach but without having to spend money on it.
Dedicate a couple of hours to find out what you want with the life that fits you and your life’s values. Then set your objectives, create the paths, and learn the skills needed to go there. Finally, begin your journey to get there. Set your schedule and commit to doing what it takes to achieve your goals and living your dreams.
You can’t go wrong investing in yourself. The rewards will be invaluable.
You can hire one of those professional career coaches, but you can also use our self-led career strategizer as a shortcut.
Being stuck in life is not fun. Now that you’re out of the trap, plan your future well so you will never get back to the situation.
When To Seek Help Getting Unstuck
Feeling stuck can happen at many different stages of life: early in careers, when transition phases end, at mid-life, after a period of relative stability, or during a pandemic.
If you have persistent feelings of low mood, worry, or anxiety, or your sense of stuckness is getting in the way of your ability to cope, it’s a good idea to speak to a doctor or healthcare professional.
You May Like: Junior Achievement Virtual Career Fair
Try To Form Better Habits
Habits are critical to success. Theyre the things we do every day that almost become automatic to us.
But sometimes, we get stuck with bad habits, and theyre often hard to break. So what can you do instead?
Replace bad habits with new and better ones. When you have good habits, they become easier to maintain over time. And eventually, youll find yourself doing more than you ever thought possible.
Set Goals That Actually Matters
This might sound obvious but we all get sucked into False Objectives at times. When youre setting goals in your career and your personal life, make sure they are goals that matter to you.
Working hard toward big achievements that dont align with your values, priorities, and who you are at the core is a fast-track toward feeling stuck.
Learn about your strengths, your gifts, and your passions. Choose goals that align with who you are at the core, and work toward goals that align with your inner strengths and gifts. This will help you maximize your potential and minimize the stuck and frustrated feelings.
Recommended Reading: Strange Career Of Jim Crow Sparknotes
Try To Look At Your Situation From Different Perspectives
When were stuck in life or career, its hard to see things from any perspective other than our own. We tend to focus only on the problems and challenges in front of us and ignore the positive aspects of our lives.
But when we try to view our situations from different perspectives, we see things a little differently. Perhaps, youll be able to find a solution that youve never even considered before.
Alcohol Tobacco And Other Drugs
The misuse and abuse of alcohol, tobacco, illicit drugs, and prescription medications affect the health and well-being of millions of Americans. SAMHSAs 2020 National Survey on Drug Use and Health reports that approximately 19.3 million people aged 18 or older had a substance use disorder in the past year.
Also Check: Different Career Paths In Business
Reasons You Might Feel Stuck In Your Job
The Indeed Editorial Team comprises a diverse and talented team of writers, researchers and subject matter experts equipped with Indeed’s data and insights to deliver useful tips to help guide your career journey.
Many people feel stuck at their job for a wide variety of reasons. It can feel challenging to step away from a job you already have and take a risk on another job or any other type of change. If you’re in this situation, you might benefit from ideas as to how to change your working circumstances or move forward. In this article, we explain what it means to feel stuck in your job, show 11 reasons why you might feel stuck at your job and identify 11 methods that may help you feel less stuck.
Feeling Stuck In Life
We may want to stop, think, recalculate our route and maybe pick a completely different style of communication. This can be a heart to heart talk, humor, a change in our own behavior. Anything but more of the same has a higher chance of actually getting what we want from the other person.
With kids discipline, we tend to do more of the same as well. When a kid misbehaves, we may scold them. When that does not work, we may scold them even louder. If that fails, we turn to punishments and consequences. The question to ask ourselves here is: are we truly eliminating the undesirable behavior? Do we keep doing more of the same just because we are so frustrated at this point, and feel a need to do something.
If our goal is to reduce the frequency of undesirable behavior and choosing a certain course of action did not work, we need to pause. We need to think and decide if we want to continue picking actions from the same group of actions. Things like scolding, yelling, sending a kid to his room, taking away something. These are all the same course of action in varying intensity. Or, do we want to try something new? Some of these things being a talk, a change of location or format for the communication, encouragement, reading something relevant together, seeking positive influences. These are all different courses of action that we can explore if what we do seems to fail.
Don’t Miss: Polaris Career Center Middleburg Heights
You Dont Feel Supported Or Valued
As someone who was often the youngest leader and one of the only women leaders in my organizations, I get it. Feeling like you dont have the support of your leadership or peers can make you feel frustrated and stuck in your job. If your ideas are constantly challenged , you dont see leaders who look like you, or you dont have a peer group to ask for help or advice, you can start to feel lonely even in a large organization.
Even worse is the feeling that your contributions and strengths are not being noticed at work. When your leader asks you for a report you sent two weeks earlier, or when a colleague asks what exactly you do, self-doubt can start to creep in. We all have a basic human need to feel appreciated for our efforts, so when our leaders or peers dont notice our contributions, we can start to feel like we arent good enough, or like we dont belong.
You might think this is a clear sign that you should start looking for a new job, and that may be the case, but there are also a few steps you can take in your current role to get the appreciation you deserve, like publicly recognizing other leaders or teams, politely reminding your leader of your teams accomplishments , or ask a trusted colleague for feedback. If you tried those things and are still not recognized for your contributions, then you can consider moving on from that job.
Don’t Doubt Your Ability To Handle Your Decisions
If you’re really stuck with a choice between two options, they may be equalor one would be more obvious. When you consider the cost of staying in the limbo of indecision, you may find it’s better to commit to a decision. You can then move forward with the self-belief that you’re able to handle what comes next. Trust yourself.
Final thoughts on feeling stuck
Unlike a ship that’s run aground, a car stuck in the mud, or a fallen tree blocking a river’s paththe particular stuckness of humans can be one of choice, state of mind, and perspective. Remember: it’s never too late to start over in life.
Choose to see your situation through a different lens and see what opens up for you.
Hopefully, by using the tips above, you will get unstuck, find your agency and ultimately change your life.
Recommended Reading: Journal Prompts For Career Exploration
Evaluate Your Goals And Values
The first step in making a change is assessing what you really want out of your career. Think about what you want your life to look like in five or ten years, professionally and personally. Ask yourself if the job you’re in can provide that life or if it would require a change. For instance, if you want to buy a home in five years, but you know that you can’t afford to with your current salary, your goals should include earning more money.
Additionally, you should reflect on your values and whether your company promotes the same things that you care about, like giving back to the community, environmental initiatives and a supportive work environment. These are important factors to consider when you’re deciding if you should switch companies or switch careers entirely. If you realize your company is a great fit for you, but you still feel stuck, you might consider a different industry.
What To Do If You Feel Stuck In The Wrong Career
If youre midway through your career and feeling stuck, you are not alone. Maybe work doesnt feel meaningful anymore, or your industry has drastically evolved, or your values and interests have changed. No matter what, your 40-something self is a very different person from the 20-something you were when you started out. The fact that this is such a common experience doesnt make it any easier to handle when its happening to you.
This crisis can be a profound one. Youve invested a great deal of time, energy, money, and education in your career. Youve established a solid network and credentials. You may have a certain lifestyle and the accompanying financial obligations to keep up with. Maybe youre hoping to put kids through college and retire in the not-too-distant future. At the same time, you realize that if you dont make a change now, you may never do it.
When you find yourself at this difficult juncture in your life and career, what do you do?
I reached out to Patty McCord, founder of Patty McCord Consulting and the former chief talent officer at Netflix for her advice. An edited version of our conversation follows:
HBR: You served as Chief Talent Officer of Netflix for 12 years. You mustve come across a lot of people who were feeling stuck maybe even some who were having a full-blown crisis. What advice did you offer people who approached you about this situation?
You and Your Team
-
Mid-Career Crisis
When youre feeling stuck.
Don’t Miss: Athena Career Academy Lpn To Rn Program
A Mindset Shift Perhaps
Sometimes we need to completely rethink how we approach our jobs and our lives. If youre feeling stuck in one area, maybe its time to reevaluate your whole approach.
Maybe its time to switch gears and try something totally new. It could be as simple as changing your job title. Or moving into a new industry entirely.
Or maybe its time to give yourself permission to pursue your dreams. After all, who knows where they might lead?
Remember: change doesnt happen overnight. But if you keep trying new approaches, youll eventually find the ones that stick.
Feeling Stuck In Your Career The Shockingly Simple Solution You Need To Know
Do you pride yourself on being able to think through solutions to difficult problems? Do you value being self-sufficient? Do you prefer figuring it out on your own to asking for help?
Maybe you’ve even developed a reputation for this. People describe you as “adaptable,” “flexible,” “creative,” and “a quick learner.”
It’s part of what’s made you so successful in the first place: what you don’t know, you simply figure out.
Challenging boss? Stretch assignment? New subject matter? You figure it out.
It’s what you do. It’s who you are. Which is why it’s so disorienting when you’re feeling stuck in your career and can’t seem to figure it out.
You don’t think twice about helping others, but when it comes to asking for help, well, you just prefer not to do it. It feels awkward and needy. And people just aren’t used to you asking.
Your self-sufficiency is an absolute strength, but like any strength, it can also be a blind spot.
Read Also: Early Childhood Education Career Path
