I'm stuck in my career

What’s happening

You’ve been thinking about the same career move for two years and you haven’t made it. You’ve been about to ask for the raise for eighteen months. You’ve been on the verge of leaving since the spring before last. You think about it every day. You don’t act. Each day in the same position trains the next day to be the same.

You’ve been doing the small things that keep the stuck tolerable. The tolerable is what’s been keeping you stuck.

Which version of this is yours?

• I hate my job but I can’t leave. Years of dreading Mondays. → I hate my job but I can’t leave

• I don’t know what to do with my life. And the not-knowing is its own daily problem. → I don’t know what to do with my life

• I have impostor syndrome. I’m doing the job. I think any day someone will figure out I shouldn’t be. → I have impostor syndrome

• I’m burned out. I can’t recover even on the weekends. → I’m burned out

• I’m afraid to quit. Even when I know I should. → I’m afraid to quit

• I’m afraid to ask for a raise. I haven’t asked in years. → I’m afraid to ask for a raise

• I keep getting fired. And I don’t know what’s going on. → I keep getting fired

• I can’t focus at work. The hours go by and nothing got done. → I can’t focus at work

• I procrastinate everything at work. Until the panic hits and I do it badly. → I procrastinate everything at work

• I’m jealous of my coworkers. Their wins make me feel worse instead of inspired. → I’m jealous of my coworkers

• I want to start a business but I’m paralyzed. I’ve been about to start for years. → I want to start a business but I’m paralyzed

• I’m in the wrong career. And I don’t know what the right one would be. → I’m in the wrong career

• I’m too old to change careers. And every year I wait makes it more true. → I’m too old to change careers

Am I burnt out or do I just hate my job?

Why career advice hasn’t worked

You very likely came out of childhood with a particular relationship to risk and to what counts as success. You may have grown up watching the adults around you stay stuck for decades and absorbed the lesson that staying was safer than moving. You may have been the kid who couldn’t safely make mistakes, so you learned to defer any decision that might be wrong. You may have absorbed the belief that wanting something different from what you have is selfish or unrealistic.

Career advice treats your problem as a knowledge gap. You already know what to do. You haven’t done it because doing it costs you something specific the advice doesn’t address: the loss of certainty, the risk of the new thing failing, the conversation with your spouse about the income drop, the admission that the last decade was a wrong turn.

You already know what to do. We work on the gap between knowing it and being able to do it.

How we work with it

Our strategic therapy work begins at the small daily transactions that have been keeping the stuck functional for you. The career decision isn’t ours to make for you. The work is closing the gap between what you already know and what you’ve been able to act on.

The next step becomes possible. You stop being a hostage to your own career.