Stuck in a Career Rut?

COVID has caused many people to feel like they are in a movie – Ground Hog Day. Being forced into “lock down” based routines, we can quickly become bored or frustrated with the daily routine or grind.

Rather than quit, is it time to reinvent or rebrand yourself by personalizing your job around your strengths, passion, and interests?

This is one way to re-energized yourself and make your job more relevant. Sometimes we need to be our personal change agents to advance.

Don’t wait for your boss to change your life. She or he may be struggling to come to grips with their own new reality or “stuckness” and haven’t noticed your state or been able to make your role better and more fulfilling.

A few Rut-buster ideas to consider:

1. Strengths – How can you bring more of your strengths into the job? Talk to your manager to be assigned new tasks or projects that allow you to apply your unique abilities, talents, and skills. Be proactive!
2. Passion – How can you be more engaged, lead initiatives or perform tasks that connect to your deep desire to make things better? Is there something that you have been wanting to start but there’s never been the right time? Maybe that time is now!
3. Purpose – What is the purpose behind what you do at work? Be clear on the reasons for doing something and the outcomes that you are expected to achieve. You may need to dig deeper to identify a meaningful purpose for your job. Once you do, you’ll be more motivated to fulfill it. You’ll also be able to recognize new opportunities to pursue, or create, that align with your strengths, passion, and purpose.
4. Colleagues – Are you running with the right crowd? Do you surround yourself and associate with positive, interesting, and talented people? You likely can’t select your colleagues, but you can decide who you spend time with. Reach out to those that are smart, motivated and who you like and can trust. Create a posse of likeminded individuals to be difference makers and innovators. Spend time with those who inspire and motivate you.
5. Self-Talk – What stories are you telling yourself about the why, what, and how of what you do at work? Hopefully, the response is more than “It’s my job”. Try repurposing or repositioning it to something like: “I analyze project data that enables management to gain insight and understanding into external forces impacting our business that helps our team achieve its strategic objectives.” Not only does that sound more interesting than “it’s my job”, but it is also inspirational and aspirational – to you!
6. Become a person of interest – Once you become someone others seek out because of your unique abilities, talents, insights, and skills, you become a person of interest to others. To be a person of interest you need to be interesting. This is one of the keys to advance your career and break out of work, and life ruts. Start by evaluating yourself and ask, “Would I want to be around me?”. If you don’t think you’d inspire yourself, how will you inspire others? Some honest self-talk may be in order.

As we come out of a pandemic-induced rut, prepare yourself to be a change agent and change leader, first for yourself and then for others.

Don’t just watch things happen – make things happen!