5 Reasons Your Career Is Stalled and How to Get Unstuck

There are moments in our professional lives that give us those delightful shocks of bliss: landing the job, proposing the winning idea, getting the promotion, being publicly recognized ... the list goes on.

Those are the moments that deliver endorphins, that keep us going and growing.

But what happens when you look around one day and realize it’s been a hot minute since you’ve been graced with such a moment? Work has been fine; you’ve heard no complaints. But every day is starting to feel the same.

There are moments in our professional lives that give us delightful shocks of bliss. But what happens when you look around one day and realize it’s been a hot minute since you’ve been graced with such a moment?

What do you do if you realize your career may be stalled? And how can you put yourself back on the path to something more?

Before you assume your best days are behind you and it’s all downhill from here, let’s talk about what might be causing this stall. Then, we can figure out how you might break on through to the other side.

1. It’s time to move sideways, not up

When I first entered the workforce, I remember getting advice from people ahead of me on how to climb that corporate ladder. It was up or out.

But a few years into my career, I stumbled onto the idea of a career lattice. Imagine a shape more like a snowflake than a ladder. It represents the idea that careers could—and in many cases should—move in all directions.

When the time to climb arrives, you'll be carrying more tools in your professional toolbox.

At different seasons in our lives, we may need different things. Sometimes explosive upward growth is it. But sometimes it’s about taking a left or a right and learning new and valuable things, instead. It's about expanding our knowledge before we take the next step up. Then, when the time to climb arrives, we'll be carrying more tools in our professional toolbox.

When I worked full-time in human resources, there were essentially two brands of HR professionals. The specialists managed programs. Think talent management, leadership development, and even company-wide compensation. The generalists partnered with and advised individual business units.

My climb had always been up the specialist ladder. I knew that world was a better fit for me. But I came to a point in my career whee I realized that if I was going to keep climbing, I needed some generalist experience. Spending time advising business leaders would only help me design...

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