4 stories you might be telling yourself that keep you stuck - in a career that no longer fits
Feel like your career is stuck in the mud, spinning its wheels? If you’re telling yourself any of these four stories, you’re immensely reducing your potential to do more satisfying and fulfilling work.
To release the wheels of your career, you need to understand which of the stories you’re telling yourself are keeping you stuck. Read about the types of stories we like to repeat…over and over again.
To stop repeating unhelpful behaviours in our career, we need to make changes. But we humans find change very uncomfortable. Our brains see it as dangerous and coax us to stay with the familiar. Read more about your brain and career change here.
That’s why years can pass before you get to your tipping point, where things either get so bad that you have to change, or you get so attracted to a new idea that you feel compelled to make a change.
To fast-track your journey to your personal tipping point, you first need to recognise the stories that you’re telling yourself. The stories that are keeping you stuck.
Four types of stories (that keep you stuck)
1. Impossibility stories
Most of the major breakthroughs in science have come about because someone decided that a certain feat was possible. It was a memorable moment watching Kipchoge break the 2 hour marathon record, live with my family, huddled around the laptop, marvelling at what humans can do when they decide to try.
Telling ourselves stories about the impossibility of an idea is a sure way to tell our brain not to bother trying anything different.
I get to hear lots of these stories.
Here are just a few examples:
I’m 50 and I know I’d have to take a step back in order to make a change
I can’t afford to change career or doing anything different - I have a mortgage to pay
I haven’t saved enough to have a financial cushion to give me the freedom to do what I want
My boss would never let me try out something new
My company doesn’t allow people to take a sabbatical
I can’t afford to pay for a coach to help me change career - I’d have to do it alone
The work is killing me, but I can’t stop now
I’d never earn enough if I made changes
I’m too old to change career
You can’t teach an old dog new tricks
I thought about X, but it wouldn’t work because…
I’ll do it in my 60s
That’s the kind of thing people only do when they retire
People like me don’t do things like that
You don’t need a Psychology degree to know that these people are telling themselves stories that will keep them stuck…
…exactly where they are…
…for a very long time…
…because they’ve convinced themselves that any change is impossible.
2. Blame stories - two varieties
There is plenty of finger pointing going on in the blame stories we tell ourselves. Attributing fault is not helpful in designing a way out of a situation. (We all know this if we have a partner - but we still do it so naturally!)
a) Blame stories about “them”
This type of story-telling barely needs an introduction. These are the stories you hear in the pub and in kitchens all over the country in response to the question “How’s work?”
My boss is such a X
They don’t want or value me or my skills
The company culture is wrong for me
This company is trying to run me into the ground
The clients constantly ask for more, but I’ve got nothing more to give
They’re not treating us like humans
They're just not listening
They just want to control me
They don’t appreciate anything we do
I always wanted to be X, but my parents…
b) Blame stories about “me”
This type of story-telling is less public. Only really good friends hear these stories. Mostly we tell them to ourselves, secretly, quietly, in our own heads. But they erode us from the inside out.
I’ve lost my mojo
I’ve nothing left to give
I’m not the same…after the divorce, or after the X
I don’t have the skills they want
I don’t fit anymore
I shouldn’t have bought this house/sent the kids to private school/spent X on X
I can’t give them what they’re asking for
I’m not very good at X anymore
I’m just going through the motions, but my heart’s not in it
Whichever variety of blame stories you might be telling yourself, they keep you stuck in the past. These stories keep you focused on whoever, or whatever, caused the problems or messed you up.
They don’t motivate, or help, you make changes, even small ones.
They simply keep you stuck.
3. Invalidation stories
Someone is always wrong in these types of stories - sometimes it’s us…sometimes it’s them. These stories often involve the word “should”.
Sometimes we decide that we are wrong. Or that they are wrong. Or that our feelings are wrong. Or that their feelings are wrong.
Here are some examples:
They shouldn't ... (any words that come after this are invalidation stories)
They shouldn’t treat us this way
They don’t believe I’m the right person to do X
They wouldn’t support me
They’re stupid, cruel, uncaring, dictatorial, authoritarian, selfish, profit-over-people…
Or:
I don’t have what it takes
I should be happy with what I’ve got
I’m not an entrepreneur
I’m not MD material
I’m not a X personality - it wouldn’t work
I don’t come from X background - so it wouldn’t work
I’m not clever enough
I’m not good enough
I’m not X enough
4. Zero-accountability stories
I pretty much handed over the responsibility for my career to my employers for so many years. It took quite a while to realise that I needed to take it back into my own hands.
It’s surprisingly easy for us to avoid taking full responsibility for our own careers, especially if we have handed them over a few decades ago to big corporates.
I should know, that’s exactly what I did with my own!
But, we own the choice.
Sometimes we don’t have choices about how we feel and think. Although, with training, it’s perfectly possible to change our internal thought processes, which then impact our feelings.
But, we have absolute choice over our actions as far as career is concerned.
Here are some examples of choices I’ve either taken myself, or my clients have taken:
Choosing to stay in a company, even if the work is deeply unsatisfying (because we need that stable income to pay the mortgage, or the school fees, or the big holidays)
Choosing our daily reactions to work situations
Choosing to keep saying “yes” to extra work requests, even though we are drowning
Choosing to stay with a company whose values don’t match ours, long enough to get to our bonus or payout
Choosing not to attend networking events in a new industry that we’re really interested in
Choosing to stay where we are, even though we can feel that the toaster is heating up after our 50th birthday
Choosing to avoid looking around our business, then realising that the floor is emptying of people our age, but still choosing to do nothing about it
Choosing to do nothing in case X idea doesn’t work
Choosing not to learn about sleep management techniques, even though we are becoming more and more sleep-deprived
Choosing not to learn about personal stress management techniques, even though our stress levels are through the roof
Choosing to dream about a magical future, where we receive a call tomorrow morning with a new job in an industry we love…without even updated your LinkedIn profile
What stories are you telling yourself most often?
Once you figure out the ‘stuck’ stories that you’re telling yourself, you’re ready to take the next big step towards unsticking your career.
That next step is to Change your Problem stories into Solution stories.
Are you ready to do take action?
Book in for one of my (free) 30 minute Light at the end of the tunnel calls, where I promise to give you at least two personalised recommendations to begin your career overhaul - whether you choose to work with me or not.
