How to avoid stagnation in your career as a working woman

If you’ve been at your job for some time, you may have noticed yourself getting more complacent and borderline bored at times. As a working woman, you may enjoy the amenities, benefits and compensation that naturally come with the territory. You may even have formed healthy and positively happy relationships at your workplace, and may feel at home there. Our jobs may be so comfortable that we can refrain from proactively seeking to advance and grow in your careers. This may result in it taking a few years for you to realize that you may be in a dead-end job that may not really fulfill you or motivate you to accomplish your purpose.

While it can be challenging to do so, it’s crucial to look for tell-tale signs like boredom, extreme routine, salary plateaus, and work overload. If you’re getting up every day with a certain lack of excitement, you may want to start re-considering if stagnation has been invading your work. Better yet, you should take some time out to stop and re-evaluate your work at frequent intervals to ensure that you’re not just going through the motions when it comes to your career.

If you’re reading this and considering how to avoid stagnation in your career, here are a few ways to consider:

• Never stop learning!

As working women especially, we have so much on our plates that we end up foregoing our need to learn and evolve at work and in life. We no longer make learning and growing a priority, and sometimes even believe we know enough to advance in our careers and lives. We tend to get stuck into familiar patterns and cycles that keep us not moving forward in our careers. Very often, we even fail to recognize the many lessons showing up in our daily lives and work.

It is often said that your job is paying you to learn, and nothing could be truer. Learn to spot and use any and every opportunity to learn something new in your career. Whether it’s increasing your knowledge of a certain field or industry, learning from a client, or picking a colleague or manager’s brain, you want to use your workplace as a source of growth and learning. This will require to proactively seek new ways to learn and be willing to stretch yourself. However, the rewards are immense if you allow yourself to do so.

• Get skilled at more things

Along with continuously learning in your career, acquiring new skills is one of the best ways to avoid rampant stagnation at work. These skills, especially those that are crucial to your advancement and progress in your particular field or industry, will keep you fresh and growing on your career path.

Whether it’s a new certification, computer program, or industry-related ability, spot those skills that are of interest to you and can help you progress at work. Better yet, the more specialized skills you have, the more valued you tend to be.

Related: How to become a CPA in less than 12 months

. Volunteer, volunteer, volunteer!

Growing in your career also requires you to stretch yourself beyond what you believe to be your capabilities. This means volunteering for opportunities in and outside of your team or department, and at times putting yourself in uncomfortable or unfamiliar situations. It also means diversifying your professional experience so as to create a portfolio of experiences that can motivate you to reach further.

Whether it’s volunteering for a good cause, or lending your services or expertise to be a mentor, or to help in a different team, be willing to step outside of what you would normally do. This goes a long way in showing that you are a leader and pushing you to achieve your goals and objectives. It also takes you away from the routine of everyday, predictable tasks in favor of discovering new professional territory.

• Don’t be afraid to ask for opportunities

Growing in your career requires you to be willing to ask for what you really want. This may mean asking for new opportunities in terms of responsibilities, salaries or even positions. Is it time to ask for a raise, a promotion, or a rotation in your career? If you’re finding yourself not challenged enough or doing the same things day in and day out, you may want to start asking for the opportunities that will help you grow and be more motivated at work.

It may be as simple as exploring openings and opportunities within your own department or company to assess if a change is needed or possible. Or you may want to consult with your mentor, or even your manager, and devise a plan whereby the right opportunities could help you steer your work in the right direction.

• Stop and re-assess!

When was the last time you stopped and re-assessed your career? When did you actually take the time to ask yourself if you were too stagnant in your career? As working women especially, it can be challenging to actually find and take this time to ask ourselves these questions. In turn, we may be working for days, months and years on end, with the feeling of not going anywhere.

Take the time to regularly assess your professional standing. Check in with yourself to see if you’re fulfilled or are just going through the motions at work.

• Consider a lateral move

Have you ever considered how a simple lateral move can actually boost your career? There are many opportunities within your department or company that can push you to the next level. However, you must be attuned to yourself and to your work environment to recognize and seize those.

A lateral move can do wonders for your career, while still not committing you to a major change. Consider positions that may be equivalent to yours, but allow you to grow and advance.

• Know when to leave

Sometimes, there is no other choice to avoid career stagnation than to leave where you are. There may be no opportunities to get promoted, or you may have simply attained your ceiling wherever you are. Know and discern when it’s the best time to leave, rather than remaining complacent in your career.

In any case, decide to quit without burning bridges and don’t forget to maintain the network you have already acquired. Choose to see it as a stepping stone and an opportunity to grow and move to better horizons, rather than a personal or professional failure.

How do you avoid stagnation in your own career?

To Your Success,

The Corporate Sister.