WHY DO I FEEL STUCK IN MY CAREER? Find out which of 3 kinds of stuck is yours

It's Tuesday morning. The kids are at school, your coffee is still warm, and the report you meant to start on Monday is open on your screen. You answer two emails first. Then you tidy a spreadsheet nobody asked for. The report is still there, the same frog you had to eat yesterday, and you already know another one is waiting tomorrow.

If you feel stuck in your career, it's usually one of three kinds. You push yourself through work you no longer want to do, or the work is fine but brings you no fulfillment, or the results don't come no matter what you put in. Each kind asks for a different first step.

Under all three, I keep seeing the same thing. You're trying to find the way out with your mind, pushing forward, while the answer is in the heart. By heart I mean the part of you that senses what matters before your mind can explain it.

Which kind of stuck are you in? The tell for each

The first kind is resistance, and it shows up as signs that build on each other.

First comes boredom. Nothing new, nothing interesting, same old, same old. You think, I just don't want to do it, but okay, I have to, I'll get myself together and eat the frog. But those frogs repeat every day.

Next, you notice you're putting things off. Chores here and there, some emails, tinkering, anything but starting the thing you have to do. On its own, that isn't a sure signal. It could be performance anxiety about a task you actually enjoy. But if you dread this type of work in general and keep delaying it, pay attention.

Then your body joins in. When you try to force yourself to start, you feel heat or cold, or you even feel sick, as if you're doing something you're not supposed to be doing. If you've come this far, you're most likely standing in front of some change.

The second kind, work that's fine but empty, feels calmer. You do the work, and the results may even be good. But they bring no fulfillment, no joy, no sense of being proud of yourself. That can mean you haven't noticed the meaning in your work yet. Or the work really holds no personal meaning for you.

This is also where people confuse stuck with burnout. Burnout mostly shows up as low energy. If what you feel is flat rather than tired, I'd look for a mismatch instead.

The third kind is about results. You do the work, and the results don't come. Your projects miss their objectives, or the clients you serve aren't satisfied, or there aren't more of them.

The kinds can mix. And you can live inside one for years before you call it stuck. I know, because I did.

The years I spent semi-asleep

For several years, I felt semi-asleep. I was only mentoring people. I enjoyed it, but with time I felt less and less fulfillment. By nature I'm a builder and an organizer, and I was cut off from my entrepreneurial zest.

Your work is different from mine. You may still know that feeling of going through the days half awake.

One of the causes was the loss of a relationship and the grief that came after. The grief went on for a long time, and it made it hard for me to get things done. Looking back, maybe I needed that slower stretch to process what I felt.

What kept me there so long was trying to think my way out. But there's something the mind can't see. What can sense it is the heart.

Before you trust a feeling like that, two doubts tend to stop you.

Is it real, or are you just ungrateful or in a dip?

The first doubt sounds like this: I have a decent job, other people would be happy with it, maybe I'm just ungrateful. Learning to be grateful for work that supports your family helps either way, and it can go two ways. Maybe the stuck feeling disappears, and you see it was just how you saw things. Or you notice that even with gratitude, the same blocks are still there, inside you or in your results. Then you know for sure it's time for a change.

The second doubt: maybe it's just a phase. First, look at your whole life, because a dip can come from things outside work. If the rest of your life is okay and work has felt this way for more than three months, it's not an ordinary dip. The same goes if it keeps coming back: a couple of bad months, then half a year fine, then the same feeling again. In my experience, that's real stuck.

Waiting does have one good side. If you come to a change later, you won't have the nagging thought, what if I had waited?

Say it's real. Then comes the scarier question: do you even want to know what your heart wants?

Why it's safer to know what you want

Maybe you're afraid you'll find out you want something you can't have with kids and bills that depend on you.

In most cases it's better to know what you actually want, because then you can decide what to do about it consciously. It stops pressing on you so much. The report feels just as heavy on Tuesday when you don't know why.

Once you hear what's in your heart, accept it and commit to it, you can say to your heart: I don't know how yet, but this is happening. With time, you start to get hunches, ideas and chances to move closer to that dream. It doesn't have to happen right away. Even studying something new slowly already brings more fulfillment.

Listening also doesn't mean you have to quit your job or blow up your family's finances. Here is the order I'd go in:

1. Start to listen.
2. Learn to hear.
3. Acknowledge what you hear.
4. Accept it.
5. Commit to it.

Once these are done, the next steps start to show. We often can't see the whole path, but we can see the next few steps, and that's enough to start walking them, without burning the bridges where you are now.

When the feeling started to come back, I began organizing events just for joy. As a kid and a teenager I loved DJing, so as an adult I decided to buy a DJ controller again. I had no clue what that would lead to.

You don't need a DJ controller. You do need a first step that fits your kind of stuck.

What's the first step for each kind of stuck?

If you're in resistance, count the months. If you've had to force yourself through the work day in, day out, for two or three months in a row, something has to change. It might be the work, a new role or a very different approach. That still doesn't mean quitting tomorrow. Start with the five steps above before you decide which.

If the work is fine but empty, ask yourself two questions. What share of your work time do you spend using your greatest strengths? If it's less than half, I would start to worry. And how much of your day are you doing what you love, for a cause you care about?

If the results aren't coming, the first step is to get clarity about what is actually going on under the surface. I'll come back to how at the end of this article.

I picture it like an onion. On the surface is what you do. Below that are your usual approaches, which with time can get you stuck. Under those are the root causes that keep those approaches going.

A woman I worked with had pushed a big project for a long stretch, and it just wouldn't grow. She kept trying new ways to make it work. Then she let go of that loop and asked herself what she would want to do whether she succeeded or failed. Her answer was to do the core work herself, with her own hands, instead of building something around it. She went back to studying for it, and she felt very uplifted.

Whatever your kind, here is one step you can take this month. Give one hour a week to doing something you love. I don't mean reading a book or watching a movie. I mean creating something, paid or not, that brings you joy while you make it and that someone wants. It can be a painting or a gathering, anything where something new comes up where there was nothing before.

It may be hard to see how that gets you unstuck. But when you reconnect with the joy of creating, it starts chain reactions you can't foresee.

Evolution, not revolution

That's what happened with the DJ controller. I started playing ecstatic dance sets, not nightclub music. Ecstatic dance is dancing freely to music, with no steps to learn and no alcohol.

From there, I started organizing conscious festivals. The ones we create mix self-discovery with play, like free flow movement and ecstatic dance, and they're substance-free.

They brought back my love for organizing, leading and creating. And they connected me with the people I now build tech products with, another love of mine since childhood. When I bought that controller, I had no clue it would lead here. But with each new step, the next step appears.

So, back to that Tuesday and the report you keep putting off. You don't have to make a big leap this month. Find out which kind of stuck you're in.

It's better to listen to your heart, even if you are afraid to do it. Following it will not destroy your life, because it can be done as an evolution, not a revolution: small steps, even slow ones, toward your dream. With time, they will get you there.

See what's under the surface

Whatever your kind of stuck, it helps to get clarity about what is actually going on under the surface. That is exactly what we built the Calling Clarity Assessment for. Take it, study your report, and from there much more clarity comes about the root causes and how to address them.

Your report also shows the usual approaches that keep you stuck, and what to work on first.

Take the free Calling Clarity Assessment

About the author

Farhad Niyoz is a cofounder of Soul Particles and the creator of the Calling Clarity Assessment. He has spent 20+ years building and running companies, has mentored 100+ founders and leaders, and has put 5,000+ hours into his own inner work. After a near-death experience, he made helping people find their purpose at work his life's mission.