What's the root of all* career problems?

Recently, I worked as a career coach for three completely different clients, in three completely different life situations, all at the same time.

Turns out, all three people had the same root problem under the surface. For context, though, here's how different their "surface" looked:

• The first was rapidly burning out after a promotion that left them with a nice raise and terrible work-life balance.
• The second was coming out of such a lucrative career (doing work they never cared about) that they were facing an unwanted retirement—in their mid-40s.
• The third was still struggling (after a decade out of school) to find a job that would feel satisfying for longer than a year.

Three completely different situations; the same root problem.

In fact, virtually everyone I've helped over the last decade, everyone who came to Vocationality feeling stuck or lost in their career, has had the same exact problem.

I call it Reactive Mode.

Reactive Mode? What's Reactive Mode?

Over the last 12 years, I've helped hundreds of people get unstuck in their career.

Each one of those people showed up as radically unique. In fact, I would often tell my clients, "Did you know that your story has never existed before in the world, and that it will never exist again?"

Inevitably, though, as we made new sense of their story, as we went digging for their Calling, Gifts & Fit (the Why, What & How of us and our work), as we diagnosed how they got stuck . . . there would be a moment where we'd clear the dust away and find Reactive Mode staring us in the face.

What's Reactive Mode? Well, you might already have an inkling from the name itself.

Reactive Mode is a passive posture. It's letting things happen to you. It's handing away your agency to someone else, or to everyone else, or somehow coming to believe that you never had any agency in the first place.

As you might suspect, any part of your life might be in Reactive Mode. For some aspects, that's no big deal. For others, it's massive.

Some of my clients' Reactive Mode has been a relatively recent thing—something that happened invisibly after a disappointment, or rejection, or after a formerly good job turned sour on them. For others, Reactive Mode was a fair description of their approach to life ever since childhood.

Here's what it looks like when Reactive Mode shows up in your work:

• Letting your boss or your workplace define who you are
• Letting others make your career decisions for you (or even asking them to!)
• Taking any promotion (or job) that's offered to you
• Treating the one work option you know as if it's the only option
• Waiting around in a toxic or sinking-ship job until the ship finally sinks or you get let go
• Suspecting your work fits you poorly, and telling yourself to ignore that feeling
• Experiencing the Sunday Scaries again, and again, and again, and doing nothing about it

So . . . what then?

As you might expect, it's hard to have a satisfying career if you're living in Reactive Mode. It's hard to show up to work as yourself. It might even feel impossible to get out of a dead-end job that someone else got you into that one time, years ago.

That's why the Great Resignation is such an exciting movement, with such huge potential. My belief is that most of the people planning to change jobs this year have suspected for some time that their career was happening to them, and not in a way that made sense for anyone. Now they're planning to do something about it.

How about you? Is your career in Reactive Mode?

If so, what are you going to do about it?

Dr. Will Gray creates programs that help people experience breakthrough growth. Through?Vocationality, he and his team help people like you move your career into Proactive Mode, discover your Self Evidence (the highest-potential truths about you), and learn what Good Fit looks like for you at work. If you'd like to learn more, sign up for a free training called "How to make a career change that actually works" or schedule a free half-hour chat with a Vocationality advisor.

Will also publishes a weekly email called "Three Thing Thursday."

*And hey, the title's a bit hyperbolic, but only a bit. There are, of course, other factors that lead to challenges in your work-life. But I think you'll find that any of those challenges can get overcome if you're also open to moving out of Reactive Mode!