If you feel like you’re doing your job on autopilot, you’re not alone. In 2015, only 32 percent of U.S. employees said they were actively engaged in their jobs, according to a Gallup Poll. For many people, that disengagement is tied closely to a sense that their career development is stagnating.
Please note, however, stagnation isn’t the same as disliking your job. When you truly hate your gig, likely feel compelled to do something about it, says Anna S.E. Lundberg, a London-based career coach. “On the other hand, it’s those of us who are just plodding along, not hating our careers but also lacking any real engagement with our work who are likely to feel stuck and remain in a role or even a career that has no real future,” she adds. Stagnation, therefore, is far worse for one’s career since it doesn’t lead to any action.
Whitney Johnson, career coach at Harvard’s Executive Education program and author of “Disrupt Yourself: Putting the Power of Disruptive Innovation to Work,” uses an S-curve to illustrate how the various stages of a career might look: “At the base of the curve there is slow growth,” she says. “It takes time to master new information or skills. At this stage, what may feel like stagnation could in reality be growth, requiring patience and effort until things get more lively.”
If you can slog through that slow period, she says, you will rapidly grow and move up until you reach the top of the slope. And that’s when actual stagnation becomes a real risk to your career. But how do you know if you’re in the good part of the S or the bad—or, whether what you’re experiencing is a natural slowdown or an actual career rut? If you answer “no” to three or more of these five questions, you’re stuck in the mud.
1. Are you motivated at work? Everyone gets bored with work sometimes, but boredom shouldn’t be your everyday.
2. Has it been 4+ years since your last promotion?
If you’ve been in your position for that long with no promotion, then it’s probably not going to come, Johnson says.
3. Are you meeting new people at work?
In other words, it might not just be you that’s stagnating.
4. Are your performance reviews exceptional?
If you’re consistently “meeting expectations,” you’re not “growing in your career.”
5. Are you sure you want to stick around?
If you have a passion you’ve been dreaming of following for years, then now may be the time to make it a reality.
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