Is this it?

What’s harder than struggling in your career?

Achieving everything you set out for and then asking yourself, “Is this it?”

If you have succeeded but are unsatisfied, this article is for you.?

Being a professional “success”

A lot of professionals in their 20s & 30s have approached me for career coaching BECAUSE their career ended up as they planned.

They studied hard.

They hustled.

They did everything they were told to get a certain position.

And they got there!

Yet unfortunately, the vision they realised for their future wasn’t what they expected.

If you’re feeling this way, the first thing you should know is that you’re not alone.

A LOT of professionals experience this, particularly those that see themselves as high performers.?

But you may not know this because many professionals don’t speak out about this.?

Success can become so linked to how others see you and how you see yourself, that you struggle to admit that you’re not happy or dissatisfied.?

You may also feel like your problem isn’t valid:

How can people empathise with me if I’ve achieved what others are aspiring to?

I’m here to say that whatever you are feeling IS valid, and there is nothing wrong with wanting something different after working so hard to achieve it.?

Here’s how I help professionals who are grappling with this.?

Don’t focus on your past

I have an economics background, which is all about understanding how people can make more effective decisions.

One bias we all succumb to is the “sunk cost fallacy”.?

Everyone is prone to making irrational decisions based on how much has already spent (aka, your sunk costs).?

These are costs you can never recover but you feel like they matter with future decisions..?

If you’re unsatisfied with your career right now, then you shouldn’t be basing your next step on all the steps you’ve made before.

For instance, if you studied Law but don’t enjoy the legal field, then you shouldn’t feel like your next career step has to use your Law Degree because you spent so much time and money getting it.?

Sure, your Law Degree could come in handy for positions you would enjoy doing, but you should also be open to positions where you don’t need a Law Degree at all.

I had a friend at uni who was studying Architecture. He studied for years to get a Degree, though when he was just one semester away from completing his Degree he realised he didn’t want to be an Architect - so he quit.?

Now, you may think that was an incredibly irrational decision. After all, he only had to do 6 months to get a Degree which could have provided him with so many career opportunities!

But his decision was actually completely rational.?

If he didn’t like what he was doing, why should he spend another 6 months doing it?

And then if he GOT that degree, how much would this influence the rest of his career to make him choose paths he didn’t want to take??

I’m not saying you should throw out your entire professional history if you’re unhappy - but I am saying you should BE VERY CAREFUL about making future decisions based on what’s making you unhappy right now.?

Expand your opportunity set

High performers who achieve everything they want but are unhappy and feel stuck are usually suffering from one thing - their perceived opportunity set is too narrow.

This happens because when you model your career around what “success” looks like, you see everything that’s different as sub-optimal.?

But what’s actually happening is you are experiencing a SINGULAR career path, when really you have LIMITLESS career paths available to you!

The best advice I give to professionals in their 20s & 30s is to consider this exercise:

1. What are you doing now that you can do for another company?
2. What are you doing now that you can do across your professional field?
3. What are you doing now that you can do across a different professional field?

This exercise helps you to appreciate if your dissatisfaction is linked to your immediate environment, or the field that you’re in, or the actual work that you’re doing.?

If you can get clear on this, then you’ll have much better clarity about where your next career step could go, rather than feeling overwhelmed by having too few or too many options to choose from.?

Don’t accept the status quo

And finally, the worst thing you can do if you’re feeling unhappy with your career is to accept the path that you’re on.?

You are feeling dissatisfied for a reason, so it’s really important to understand if this feeling is temporary or permanent.?

Unfortunately, it can be easier to stay in a situation which is familiar to you but you’re unhappy about, than face the prospect of an unknown future.?

If this is you, you’re probably saying or thinking things like, “This is normal for my line of work”, or “I should be happy with the success I’ve achieved”, or “I don’t want to start over again”.?

For what it’s worth, my guidance to professionals in their 20s & 30s is that if you’re unhappy with where your career is going, then a change needs to happen.?

How that change can be made effectively is something we explore with career coaching, but the key is having the awareness that the status quo isn’t working, so what are you waiting for??

If you are a professional in your 20s & 30s and the success you’ve achieved isn’t what you were expecting, I’d love to connect as it is entirely possible for you to enjoy a fulfilling and meaningful career ahead.

Thanks for reading to the end of this article!

If you're keen to Advance Your Career, please enjoy my FREE online course which will help you:

1. Get clear on what you want
2. Get the job you want
3. Get paid what you’re worth
4. Set yourself up for future success

Go for it!