For the last few blog posts we have been discussing career change and stagnation, and what to do if you are in this situation (which led to another blog post on reinventing yourself). (Note: For the last few weeks, I have been keeping busy coaching people who are in the midst of a career change, or even a career crisis!)
In keeping with that theme, what do you do when you are pigeonholed or stereotyped in a certain role within your chosen profession? You try to do new things, or you may even try to get out, but people keep putting you back!
This can do two things: 1) Hold you back, and/or 2) Make you afraid (or don’t know how) to move forward and leave.
Has it happened to you? (Note: This is not a rhetorical question – please share your stories by commenting below!).
Consider these 3 Career Stories:
One of my clients is a CPA. She specializes in audit, which apparently is a very difficult, tedious area of accounting that not many people actually like to do. It is her specialty, and she has tried to “get out of it” and go into other areas at one time or another. The problem is that her employers are aware of her specialized skill and hire her for her expertise in audit! In other words, she has become “known” for that expertise!
Another client of mine is a wonderfully vibrant and dynamic woman who used to be in a marketing role. She changed careers and went to work for a government agency. Sad to say, but over the years she has been working for this organization, she has lost all semblance of that once bright and lively person. She has become suppressed, oppressed, and “bureaucratized” to the point where she has lost her self-confidence and is now scared to leave. She needs a way to get back in touch with the person that she used to be.
And a little bit of my own story – I have worked as a software instructor in a technology field for 15 years. At some point, I became burned out and decided to give coaching a try.
So what can happen when you become stagnated and/or burned out in a career for a long period of time? There are 3 additional drawbacks:
1) Loss of your creativity and creative spark.
2) Doing the same thing all the time without any change is not a balanced workload and can lead to burnout.
3) Lost opportunities. How? Because you are burned out and no longer looking at things in new ways or with a fresh perspective, you don’t always see new opportunities when they present themselves. (Note: This is precisely why many solo-preneurs in this situation hire a coach!)
In my next post, I will cover a few things you can do to climb out of that “stuck” pigeonhole you are in. In the meantime, I would like to hear from you regarding any of the above questions or comments.
Thank you! I appreciate all of my readers!
Hey Karen,
First I have been stuck and pigeonholed before for a job I do not do well and am not well suited for, and I have to say that it is because I followed someone else s wishes.
What I realized from this, is that in order to be congruent with who I need to be, I had to come “clean” and tell everyone involved how I felt. Then I promised to this job that I am not so good at, as long as I was given the outlet I needed to follow my passion. Today I have to say that sometimes balancing the two can be quite demanding and challenging.
However, I could not be happier. The job I did not like I now love. The job I wanted (which is to have my own business) benefits daily from the skills I get from the other job and all is wonderful.
I say that if you feel stuck take the time to find a way out, and if you feel that you are truly stuck do the other thing you want as a side job till you become known as an expert in that as well. It may take up time and the like, but it can never hurts to grow your skill set. =D
Great advice Gen! Thanks for reading!
Hi Karen,
It is so true that when you are in a job for a long time you can become stuck and stagnant. It’s happened to me before and you know when you don’t listen to that little voice, that says no the first time. Well history can sometime repreat itself. I had my first warning in 2009 I saw a misunderstanding take place in our office and knew it was clearly time to jump off the boat. But didn’t take hid. everybody was saying don’t quit your job there are no job security how will your pay your rent. And I should have listened to my instinc. So I left this job to try the next one and to my supprise even though there was hardly any politic I was bored out of my mind since I had been in this industry for so long.
It cost a lot not to listen to these warning they could save you from the aftermath. This could also cost you your health so I’m glad I understood the lesson the second time.