You’re feeling stuck in your career. What are the best tools to help you get unstuck?

Forget tools, goals, strategies etc. When you are feeling stuck, understand and analyze the "feeling" first. Back when I was working at a Big 4, after 4 years I reached a stage where I felt stuck. I disengaged from everything to everyone & had an honest conversation with myself 1st. Turns out I was stagnating. The role was no longer challenging + 1000s other things. The only way I was able to analyze this is when I figured how I see my life to be and what I seek out of it. The current situation back then did not match with anything I valued most. Whenever you feel stuck, talk! Talk to yourself, talk to someone you deem fit, list down what you want and what you value and you will be able to build the foundation for further answers.

I have transitioned my career from Service to Product based organisation. So I guess everything depends upon curiosity and opportunities 1) Stay curious and Learn new skills 2) Use the learned skills and create project 3) Display the projects on your website, LinkedIn, YouTube, GitHub 4) This will help you to move on from 1 org to another without much effort or failure Staying stagnant is in our hands, we need to keep the control in our hands so that when required we can actually pull the right actions. Curiosity and waiting for opportunity are the 2 skills needed in current and upcoming job market!

Starting with Self-Reflection is going to be good start. 1. Ask Yourself Questions: What aspects of your life make you happiest? When have you felt most fulfilled and satisfied? Reflect on specific moments and experiences. 2. Examine Past Experiences: Consider both positive and negative experiences in your personal and professional life. What values were present or lacking during those times?

The first thing I do with clients when they feel stuck in their careers is identify why they are stuck. Is it that they have no target companies, a poor LinkedIn profile, not effectively telling stories, or not willing to try new things? Once we've identified why the client is stuck, let's plan on checking those emotions, leaving the past in the past, focus on the process not the outcome, make your LinkedIn profile pop, and learn to trust being yourself - cause people hire people they like! This type of self-reflection work is hard, but worth it in the end, and helpful at identifying future behaviors so that the client does not get stuck again!

Get a career coach or mentor would be my (pretty obvious) initial advice. That way you can get help in untangling what is going on with your career. Of course that costs - but how much are you worth? That said, you can also get amazing FREE support and advice from AI tools. Try Open AI's Chat GPTs store. My recommendation? Search for "Career Coach - Andreas Guaido PhD."

When thinking about your skills, do you also take into account your transferable skills? Do you remember to consider the breadth of your previous experience - not only the skills you have acquired in your professional life, but also the knowledge and skills you have acquired through hobbies, etc.?

A crucial part of breaking free from a rut is thoroughly evaluating your abilities, including your strengths and passions. Recognizing your skills allows you to capitalize on your strong points and helps you pinpoint areas that need enhancement. Furthermore, it opens up a world of new possibilities and opportunities. Several tools are available to aid this process, including the Skills Profiler, the Skills Matcher, and the SkillScan. These resources are designed to help you identify, assess, and rate your skills. They can also provide career suggestions that align with your unique skill set. In addition to these tools, consider seeking feedback from colleagues, mentors, or supervisors to understand your skills better.

There are soft and hard skills. Based on the first exercise, now write down everything. Think through all your previous and current positions, and think about what skills you had to use there. Now you have your values, and skills listed.

Coaching someone to assess their skills involves guiding them through a structured process to identify, analyze, and reflect on their abilities. We can begin with working on Self-Reflection, aiming at identifying strengths and weaknesses (a full SWOT Analysis) tasks or activities they enjoy the most and what skills do they think are essential for their personal or professional goals. Creating a skills Inventory is also useful, as well as prioritize/ Rank Skills based on importance and relevance.

I like to call skills "superpowers"! Not only the skills that you can do well but also the ones you do enjoy doing! Sometimes we get stuck on things that we are doing for a long time and we become really good at but we take no pleasure out of this! So to discover your superpowers, take a pen and paper and start writing down on a list all the hobbies, professions, trainings, studies etc that you have had in your life. Then start listing the skills you got out of this job, hobby etc And 3rd list how these skills are transferable into your life. i.e. Teacher -> Class Management, Curriculum Preparation... -> Ability to communicate with diverse people/backgrounds, Ability to simplify complex topics into easier to-the-point parts etc.

Try exploring your interests in these unconventional ways: 1) Consider taking short experimental sabbaticals to explore unconventional interests or passions. 2) Use the above time to engage in volunteer work, travel, or immersive learning experiences. 3) Challenge yourself to immerse deeply in an interest outside your comfort zone. 4) Designate specific time slots for random learning sessions on diverse topics. 5) Attend retreats or workshops that blend learning with recreational activities. 6) Collaborate with colleagues who share common interests in unconventional hobbies. 7) Maintain a journal & track how these explorations contribute to your personal and professional growth.

Is your challenge that you can't think of what interests you or are there just too many of them? Could your professional interests be inspired by your hobbies, for example? Do you know what your friends and relatives do? Talk to them and ask them about their working life, be active and curious. The most important thing is to go outside your own stuck and limited bubble and look around you.

Cuando me encuentro muy complicada en encontrar qué sí me interesa, he aplicado una fórmula opuesta. Empiezo a enlistar lo que NO me gusta. Descartar me da tranquilidad y bastante claridad, conforme sigo con mi lista es como si abriera la puerta a esa nube y poco a poco comienza a verse lo que sí me interesa y lo anoto sólo como ideas, no me exijo tenerlas claras desde el principio, sólo las anoto como opciones y me voy a descansar, al día siguiente estando fresca vuelvo a revisar y mi perspectiva está más clara y me siento en posición de comenzar a explorar si realmente esos intereses son genuinos y si se alinean con mi proyecto de vida y mis talentos.

Interests are a small component in finding the right new path in your career. Interests indicate WHAT you might like doing but not what is the right fit. In other words, what type of career are you most suited to doing and what would make you happy, fulfilled and never need to worry about changing careers or being stuck again. As a career coach specialising is helping people who are lost or stuck leave behind jobs they hate and finding the right path to career happiness, I focus on supporting clients identifying their core drivers and passions, not just interests - after all, you could be interested in something that has no relevance to the world of work, so how will that help you find your right path?

Imagine what you would do, if you could do anything? when you started your career, what did you want to be? Play around a bit with your thoughts. Write down a few ideas.

As a career coach, I've seen how setting SMART goals catalyzes professional growth. They provide a structured approach that aligns with your career aspirations, ensuring that every step is intentional and directed toward tangible outcomes. Remember, the 'achievable' aspect is crucial; it's about setting goals that stretch your capabilities without being unrealistic. This balance is key to maintaining motivation and ensuring progress. Tools like the SMART Goals Worksheet aid in goal setting and serve as a visual reminder of your journey, keeping you accountable and focused.

Set SMART goals and evaluate them. You can also ask someone you trust to assess the targets with you. Maybe you know someone who also is professionally stuck - could you cooperate and sparr each other?

Take your values, skills, and wishes and start matching them. Then you can create your goals from it. Check your goals (and adjust if needed) with the SMART chart. Now, you can plan your next steps.

Clearly define your short-term and long-term career goals. Break them down into actionable steps, creating a roadmap for your professional journey. Having specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART) goals provides a framework to guide your actions and measure your progress. Make sure your short terms goals feed into your long term goals and align with who you are.

ChatGPT can play a key role in this goal setting process: 1. Specificity Guidance: ChatGPT can help refine your goals to be specific. For instance, instead of "improve networking skills," a specific goal could be "connect with 15 professionals in my target industry monthly." 2. Measurability Advice: ChatGPT can suggest quantifiable metrics to track progress. For example, if your goal is skill enhancement, it could be "complete three industry-relevant online courses in the next quarter." 3. Achievability Analysis: Discuss your current skills and resources with ChatGPT. It can provide a realistic assessment of your goals, ensuring they're challenging yet achievable, and suggest steps to enhance your skill set if needed.

When we find ourselves stuck despite self-analysis, seeking feedback becomes the key to unraveling the 'why.' To make this process effective, consider adopting the SKS feedback-seeking method. This method involves a simple approach—asking others what we should 'Stop' (S), 'Keep' (K), and 'Start' (S): ? What should I stop doing? ? What should I keep doing? ? What should I start doing? If the initial feedback is unclear or you need more information, don't hesitate to follow up with clarifying questions and once you receive feedback, take time to reflect on it. Identify actionable steps you can take to address the feedback and improve your situation.

It is not always easy to ask for feedback on your performance at work. By gathering feedback and perspectives about yourself, you can benefit yourself and make your stuck career unstuck easier. By using different tools and asking for feedback about yourself, you can also put together an impressive toolkit to help you motivate yourself for your next job.

Probably at this point you will have some ideas, how to change or improve your career. Write small action plans and start executing them. You are not stuck anymore, because you have plans, action steps and to-do lists. Di this whenever you feel stuck again. A small stop and evaluation always helps!

We learn about ourselves through others. So rather than sit in isolation feeling stuck, get out there and engage with people you want to emulate. Expand your network. Lean into your friends, family, mentors, and colleagues. Ask them what they think your gifts are and what they admire about you. You might be surprised to find that you have a special gift you weren't even aware of.

When thinking of a career change, use your network and contact people whose opinions you respect. If you don't have anyone able to help, try a basic LI search using the job title and message people already performing the role you’re considering. Regardless of who it is, ask Qs. How did they get to where they are? Are there any certifications or formal training they'd recommend? Is there anything they'd do differently if they were to start over and most importantly do they know of any job openings? If your approach is respectful, people tend to be flattered that you value their insights and have been proactive. Quite often the results can be surprising, and they may offer to mentor you as you embark on this new career journey.

Option 1: Seek out a person or two who you admire and write them a Letter (old school, on paper, sent to their work address) Option 2 : for privacy or legal in-house legal- Join the Openli Community where there are bi-annual free mentorship matches. Option 3: find someone to mentor! Being a mentor for someone earlier in their careers is A great way to show you how far you’ve come. Dare to reach out! People will surprise you!

This is where most people get stuck in the career building process as it's the most tangible action you can take when trying to get unstuck in a career. Everything leading up to the point of 'finding a mentor' is done in a safe place. In the mind. Secretly. In silence. You quietly contemplate your values, your skills, your smart goals, and you may even seek feedback on those important things but it's usually done in a 'safe' way - by asking family or close friends - the people who tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to hear. Real progress comes when you reach work with someone who has what you desire. Who will tell you the truth. And coach you to be a better version of yourself without fluff or commiseration. #onward

Una vez leí un texto buen interesante denominado las 7 edades de un líder, donde se enfatizaba sobre la importancia de poder contar con un mentor, y como podría ayudarnos, incluso para quienes se encuentran transitando a posiciones de liderazgo o mayores responsabilidades según cargo.

ChatGPT can be an invaluable tool: 1. Identifying Potential Mentors: ChatGPT can assist in identifying potential mentors by analyzing industry leaders and influencers in your field. It can suggest professionals with relevant experience and expertise who you might not have considered. 2. Crafting Outreach Messages: Use ChatGPT to draft personalized, respectful outreach messages to potential mentors. It can help you articulate your goals, interests, and what you seek in a mentorship, increasing the chances of a positive response. 3. Preparing for Mentorship: ChatGPT can guide you in setting clear objectives for the mentorship. It can help formulate questions and discussion topics, ensuring you make the most out of the mentorship experience

Working with a career coach unlocks potential and opportunities that you perhaps never thought possible. Clients move beyond the crossroads that has kept them trapped in a world that enclosed around them and leave feeling liberated. They know which path to take next that will make them truly happy. Freed from limiting beliefs that have held them back from chasing their dreams, they have a step-by-step structured approach on how to reach their goals. More importantly, they have all the tools and mindset to make their dream goals into a reality. Imagine a life without limits – that’s what Mapleleaf Vision clients achieve.

All the times I felt stuck or uninspired, I made an inventory of my values, chief assets, how I enjoyed spending time. HOWEVER, the feeling of being stuck literally infers the lack of movement. We get stuck in our heads ruminating how we got stuck and how to get un-stuck and how much it sucks to be stuck. Free your mind and time from that stuck space and channel some energy into active and/or creative play. If you can’t think of fun things to try, tell ChatGPT what you enjoy and ask it to list interactive or solo activities to try on a 15-min break or on the weekend. Notice how it helps free up your thoughts. There’s a lot of science behind the benefits of play & fun -“The Power of Fun” by Catherine Price is a fantastic book on this topic.

The common characteristics of people who make a fundamental change in their careers after a certain number of years are to be sure of what they want, to stick to their decisions consistently, to invest a lot of time and effort in research and learning, and finally, to never give up.

If you are feeling stuck or a lack of interest in your career, try to take a step back. Reconnect with your purpose. As yourself what makes you feel like you are doing meaningful work? How does that connect with your purpose? Once you can figure out what is meaningful to you and how it connects to your purpose, you will have more clarity and happiness in your life.

For all the above: Maintain a career journal to reflect on your experiences, goals, and challenges. Regularly journaling your thoughts and aspirations can provide clarity and help you identify patterns or areas where adjustments are needed.