Everything seems fine, at least on the surface. The job is under control, the money is coming in every month and the team is largely on autopilot mode. The boss is happy. But you are not! Something is bothering you.
It’s that feeling of going nowhere, as if there is an imaginary ceiling above you that holds you back from moving upwards. You feel stuck.
If you feel like you’ve hit stagnation in your current job, the temptation to move onto a new job is high. But a career decision made in a rush usually isn’t the wisest one. So, what to do in the meantime?
Strengthen domain skills
Every industry is unique and requires specific skills to grow and succeed as a professional. They are called domain skills. Strengthening our domain skills means adding depth to existing skills as well as learning other relevant skills. This is how someone becomes an expert in a particular line of work.
Why should we be working on our strengths, such as our existing expertise, instead of our weaknesses? While both our strengths and weaknesses can be improved, various studies have shown that when we focus on developing our strengths, we grow faster than when trying to improve our weaknesses. Additionally, people who are utilizing their strengths are happier and more confident.
Then what to do with our weaknesses? Should we just ignore them? No, especially if they are “mission critical.” But rather than beating ourselves up to fix our shortcomings, it is better to explore the most effective strategies for dealing with our weaknesses in different situations. That could include minimizing our exposures to tasks we are not good at or delegating them to people with better expertise.
Develop transferable skills
Transferable skills are core skills which are of value in a wide range of subjects and situations. They allow you to move smoothly across different roles and fields, so you can develop a breadth of experience throughout your career. Developing transferable skills essentially means learning how to take a lesson learned from a particular situation and applying it in another situation.
People acquire transferable skills in a variety of ways, including through education, employment, volunteering or personal activities. These skills fall into several categories, including problem solving, communication and leadership. Having a few transferable skills add flexibility to our career profile and it is especially helpful when switching jobs.
Refresh learning skills
After working on a particular role for a while, it is easy for us to feel that we have adequate knowledge for the job and not put our learning muscle to work. We start being complacent and stop being curious about the world around us.
But the world today is in a constant flux. Industries are consolidating, new business models are evolving, innovative technologies are emerging and consumers are more demanding than ever. That requires the willingness to experiment and learn new things again and again, something that can be daunting for a lot of us.
Learning how to learn is the skill to seek and persist in learning. Intelligence is not static and it must be trained to continually adapt to the dynamic world.
The ceiling won’t be there forever
It’s not uncommon for one to feel that his job is stagnant and there is no obvious next step in their career. Perhaps there isn’t indeed, for now.
But one day, the ceiling might be gone. Since we don’t know when that will happen, the best way to anticipate it is by acquiring the necessary skills beforehand and be more prepared than the rest of the crowd.
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