Rejuvenating Your Career

 

Rejuvenate - /rəˈjo͞ovəˌnāt/ - verb – to restore energy and motivation into your work by refreshing routines, learning, or shifting perspectives.  To breathe new life into your career, without necessarily changing jobs, through new challenges, projects, or skills.  To rediscover meaning and fulfillment in your professional journey by aligning work with values and passions.  To revitalize your sense of growth by experimenting with new directions, opportunities, or approaches.

Have you ever felt stuck, like you’re doing the same thing over and over, and over again?  You want something more, but you either don’t know what it is or you can see it but it’s just out of reach?  A lot of us have been there, in more ways than one, and it can be difficult to get past that feeling.  I’ve found that if you want to get unstuck, it helps to understand why you feel stuck.

I’ll be honest, you don’t have to go through a long self-awareness process to figure out why you feel stuck.  Sometimes you know what the problem is and can act on it quickly and easily.  If that’s where you are, go for it.  Other times, you may know what the problem is but it’s the wrong time to act on it.  So, you figure out the right time, or the right signal, and prepare for action.  The rest of this post is for those who aren’t quite sure why they’re stuck or what they can do about it.

Welcome to CareerChecker.  Please Describe Your Symptoms

• Chronic Boredom – every day feels like copy/paste
• Promotion Blockage – you’ve been in the same role too long with no promotion path
• Skill Atrophy – your industry is moving forward, but your skills are stuck in the past
• Meaning Deficiency – you’re asking, “What’s the point?” more than, “What’s Next?”
• Compensation Malnutrition – your paycheck hasn’t kept up with the job duties
• FOMO Syndrome – everyone but you seems to be advancing

What’s The Diagnosis, Doc?

You may have heard the expression, “Don’t live to work, work to live.”  There is some truth to this, but it’s not equally true for everyone.  You can take either approach and still feel stuck.  This feeling often comes from the following kinds of stagnation:

• Skill Plateau – you feel like you’re no longer learning or growing
• Role Ceiling – you feel there is limited upward mobility in the current organization
• Market Value Gap – you’re unsure if your skills are still relevant or competitive
• Fulfillment Gap – your work no longer feels meaningful or energizing
• Lack of Transparency – it’s not obvious how your work is adding value to the organization

So, what can you do?

Prescription for Rejuvenating Your Career

Once you understand the reason(s) you feel stuck, it’s time to determine what you can do about it.

You don’t have to change jobs to rejuvenate your career

There are several actions you can take to combat stagnation, regardless of your industry:

• Expand on your skills – pursue a relevant certification or build technical, leadership, or transferrable skills; learning something new, practical, and applicable can give you a new outlook on your career.
• Change your expectations – frame your work around value and outcomes, not tasks; looking at the bigger picture can help you work past feelings of drudgery.
• Market test – benchmark your skills and experience against external job postings, explore adjacent roles; this will help you understand if your skills are still relevant and if you have options.
• Experiment – mentor/coach someone, lead a working group, take on a side project, or volunteer; finding ways to share what you know or serve others can bring its own sense of fulfillment and help you work past negative feelings at work.
• Reframe your mindset – view your career as cycles of reinvention, not a ladder with a straight shot to the top; the opportunities to start at the bottom and working your way to the top aren’t what they used to be.  You might be able to choose a lifelong career.  You might also learn new things along the way that take you in a new direction. 

A Prescription Only Works if You Take the Medicine

You’ve recognized that you feel stuck.  You’ve identified options to overcome that feeling.  It’s time to pick a direction and take action.  Yes, you could analyze each option, in depth, to determine which would be the most effective.  If this helps you feel unstuck, I’m not going to tell you not to.  For others, it’s time to act; to pick a direction and commit to it. 

Sometimes, you have to change jobs to find the opportunities for growth you’re looking for

If you spend too much time worrying about whether your direction will help you feel unstuck it probably won’t help because your focus is on being stuck.  Instead, focus your thoughts and energy on your new mindset, expectations, and/or actions.  For example, if you’re going to coach someone, don’t do it to help you feel better about yourself, do it to help someone else grow.  They can tell the difference, and it will be less effective for both of you if your focus is on yourself.

This may sound a little contrary to what I just wrote, but if you’re the reflecting type, you may find it beneficial to pay attention to your feelings and keep a journal.  Journaling can help you keep track of what worked and what didn’t work, which can be important to know as you experiment with different ways to get unstuck.  You may find you need to pivot, but don’t start off planning to pivot.  Give it an honest try before moving on.

However you start, start small.  Pick one thing and get started.  Maybe that’s all you’ll need to feel unstuck.  Maybe you’ll discover a whole new direction to pursue.  You could also find more reasons to feel stuck (that’s a good time to pivot).

These are just my thoughts.  What have you done to get unstuck?