Feeling stuck in your career?
When your job hits a wall, don't let self-doubt, naysayers keep you from a new opportunity
Call it rusting out, hitting an impasse, or a drought of the soul. In almost every career, there will come a time when you grind to a halt or at least slow to a crawl. Your prospects seem shrunken, your drive at work and at home fizzles. You feel stuck.
This realization came to Bobbie Carlton a few years ago after 20 years in high-tech public relations. She'd just finished stints at software firms where she'd managed marketing and charitable projects - the "warm and fuzzier aspects of PR," says Carlton. Landing back in agency work after a downsizing, she felt restless, as her newly acquired skills stagnated.
It took a few years, but in 2006, Carlton engineered her own rescue. A chance meeting in the ladies' room with the head of B*tween Productions led to her current job as head of marketing for the Lexington publishing and media company aimed at preteen girls.
"I definitely have more energy because I'm more excited about things," says Carlton, a mother of two boys, 10 and 5. "I was absolutely looking for something more meaningful."
How did Carlton get unstuck? A first step is recognizing that you are. Sounds simple, but a culture that values relentless work and connectivity squeezes out the time we need for soul-searching, says Timothy Butler, the director of career development at Harvard Business School and author of "Getting Unstuck: How Dead Ends Become New Paths."
"We don't feel permission to feel stuck, to be uncertain, to want to go deeper, to want to say, 'what's going on?' " says Butler, who characterizes impasse as a "difficult, dark time" that delivers a needed message to wake up and move on.
Once you realize the need for change, you often have to get past two watchdogs guarding the gates of opportunity: Self-doubt, and well-meaning naysayers. These twin hurdles that keep us from being dilettantes also can mire us in the status quo.
"The reason it took me so long to make the switch is because I had doubts and fears and trepidation for many years," says Tom Ingrassia, who left a 25-year career in college administration a few years ago to become a Worcester-based agent for musicians and actors. Although working in entertainment had been his lifelong ambition, worries about financial security wedded him to a safe career path.
Eventually, he tiptoed into his dream through freelance writing, then project work for Mary Wilson, a former member of The Supremes who offered him a job managing her merchandising business in 2001. He resigned as an assistant dean at Clark University to take the job, later setting up his own agency - with his wife's encouragement.
That kind of support is key. Perhaps because humans both relish and dread change, we often counsel others to sit tight when they are restless. This repeated advice has surprised Albany, N.Y.-based attorney Chuck Dayter, who is mulling closing his own successful practice and moving into marketing or a job at a big law firm to get out from behind his desk more.
"A lot of people - peers, your cohorts, outsiders - say, 'Gee, why would you want to give that up?' " says Dayter. "You feel stuck because of that."
But when is it worthwhile to make the leap to go to medical school at age 30 or start your own dog-walking business or switch within your company from sales to accounting?
In a world of instant results and custom-tailored anything, abundant choice can be paralyzing, says Nicholas Aretakis, a former high-tech executive turned career coach. "People are blinded by so much selection." The antidote is taking the time to know your skills so you're not job-hopping willy-nilly.
At the same time, know when to quit a dead-end prospect or you'll find yourself stuck again. Succeeding in any worthwhile career that suits you involves a long, challenging period of mastery that author Seth Godin calls the "dip." If you can endure the dip, you'll have surpassed most people. But take care that you have the passion to make it all the way.
"If you're going to quit in the dip, you've just wasted a lot of effort. You did the 80 percent that everyone does," says Godin, author of "The Dip: A Little Book that Teaches You When to Quit (and When to Stick)." "If you can see your way through the dip, it's the best thing that even happened to you. It's scarcity that creates value."
A few dead ends have not deterred Amy Champion of Milton from finding her niche. After dropping out of high school and becoming a mom twice-over in her teens, Champion tried hairstyling and nursing school and working in a law office before entering the financial field. She earned high school and college degrees part time while raising her family, and now is licensed as an assistant broker and aiming for an MBA. She's been discouraged, stuck and frustrated, but that's never stopped her for long.
"There's always a bump in the road, but if you're determined, you can get past it," says Champion, whose two daughters, 22 and 21, are in college. "I knew I had to be a role model for my daughters."
Balancing Acts appears every other week. Maggie Jackson can be reached at maggie.jackson@att.net. 