What Is Career Stagnation? (& How To Overcome It!)
You’re not quite there yet, but it feels like you’re not moving anywhere either. Gone are the days of excitement and challenge. Most of the time, you feel bored out of your wits.
When you look back into the past six months, it feels like you’ve been carrying on mindlessly in a disengaging routine. You have been getting things done, but you haven’t really “accomplished” anything. Nothing’s new, and you feel like a zombie in the workplace.
That, my friend, may be one of the signs of career stagnation.
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Signs of Career Stagnation
You’re Bored
Do you find yourself at your desk doing mindless work? Do you think your job does not spark inspiration or happiness? Most of the time, this boredom stems from the fact that your current position does not challenge you anymore.
If you list down all of your skills and knowledge, you will most likely find that half of them are unused by your current job. This waste of your talents may seem like a break in the beginning, but if it becomes a chronic situation, you may end up getting rusty and losing some of your best assets.
You Haven’t Had A Raise
Either your pay has been the same over the past year or two, or you’ve been handling the same position and doing the same task in the past five years or so. Or it might be even both.
Getting a raise or a promotion can be a big deal, but it is expected of someone who has the drive to succeed in their career. Understandably, anyone who has been working the same job and/or receiving the same pay for the longest time would feel stuck at work.
The Future Looks Vague
Career growth is not anywhere on the horizon for you. Advancement is only but a dream. Moreover, there are no realistic expectations and no plotted destinations. You might even doubt the validity of that organizational chart hanging on the office wall (if your office has any).
If you look at your current job and think to yourself, “Where will I be, three or five or ten years from now?” and the image set before you is still at the same desk, doing the same thing, receiving the same pay, you might want to explore better horizons.
You Haven’t Learned Anything In A Long Time
The same goes for accomplishments because chances are you’ve learned something in the process of your success. You’ll know you’re stagnant in your career if you look back and see that you haven’t grown.
Sure, you might be complying with all the tasks expected of you, but you know you can do it all with both eyes shut. After each task, evaluate yourself:
Did you learn something new?
Did you discover a new skill?
Did you find out an area of yourself that needs a bit of improvement?
If your answer is no, it’s affirmative: You really are stagnant in your career.
You Don’t “Feel” Successful
Now, this is highly subjective. You might be already at a managerial or executive level and still feel this way. You most likely just experienced all of the signs mentioned above.
Add the fact that when you’re at the top, it is easy to feel that there is nowhere else to go. The expectations are overwhelming, and the stress is unimaginable—enough to snuff the inspiration out of anyone.
Ways to Overcome Career Stagnation
Get Yourself Sorted Out
What do you want out of life? Think of your dreams and aspirations. Determine your passions. What are you good at? How can you become even better? Asking yourself these questions gives you an idea of which path to follow. And if you’re already on that path, the answers to these questions are what would inspire you to keep ongoing.
Enroll In A Class
It could be something that would help you advance in your field, like an MBA or a specialty training. It could also be something completely unrelated but livens up your life and breaks the monotony. Something like a dance class or an art workshop—basically anything that gets you in a good mood and gets your creative juices running. Online courses are easily accessible and are a great option for busy workers.
Don’t Be Afraid Of Taking The Lead
Chances are, if you look close enough, you’ll find leadership opportunities within your workplace. Volunteer to help out co-workers, ask for additional work from your boss in your free time, offer to be the point person in your next new project—it might be daunting to serve yourself up like that, but you’ll learn a lot in the end and get noticed by management, too.
Practice Your Negotiation Skills
If you genuinely feel undervalued and neglected in the workplace, maybe all you need is to voice out a bit. Take a sincere stance and approach your manager to air out your concerns. Ask if you can take on more responsibility, or what steps you can take to achieve a rank or salary raise in the next assessment. This gives you a clear idea of what you need to do to get out of your career stagnation.
Find A New Job
If all else fails, maybe it’s time to explore other options outside of your organization. Maybe you will be valued more somewhere else. Maybe your best skills and assets are meant to be maximized by another company instead of where you are at the moment.
Don’t take this lightly and jump ship at first sight of boredom, though. Take a serious look at your current situation and how long you have been experiencing career stagnation. Also, check out if you’ve taken any steps to address it and how these measures have worked out for you so far.
Career stagnation is a major bummer. But it is more common than you think—more than half of adults in the US workforce experience it at some point in their careers. Not everybody minds being in this state for as long as they can survive daily living. However, for those who want advancement or maybe a better life, career stagnation is a serious obstacle.
Author Profile: Vanessa Rodriguez
Vanessa is a content writer for Skill Success—an online platform specializing in online education. She adopts a broad range of approaches to tackling different subjects in personal and professional development.
