Tag Archives: Career Change

Reignite Your Career: Strategies to Overcome Professional Stagnation

Posted on by Bill Ryan

Leslie Campos again provides us with astute insight and timely perspective for those committed to invigorating their careers. Enjoy Leslie’s latest contribution:

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It’s a strange ache—the realization that you’ve plateaued. You show up, check boxes, close laptops. Rinse, repeat. At some point, the thrill vanished. That upward glide you once trusted. It’s now a flatline. But here’s the thing: stalled careers aren’t dead ones. They’re dormant. And if you’re willing to disrupt your patterns, inject some discomfort, and make room for reinvention, the climb returns. The goal isn’t a complete overhaul. It’s friction. Small shocks to the system. Enough to wake it back up.

Start by Spotting the Stall

Momentum doesn’t vanish overnight. It fades—quietly. That’s why it’s critical to start by identifying signs of career stagnation. Are you no longer learning? Do promotions pass you by while your energy dips and your engagement fizzles? Pay attention to the repeated patterns: meetings that blur together, responsibilities that don’t shift, feedback loops that stay stale. Recognizing the plateau is what gives you leverage. It’s what shifts you from passive fatigue to active choice. This is where the rework begins.

Rebuild Your Resume, Reframe Your Voice

Before you send anything out, before you whisper about a new direction—pause. Your resume tells a story. And if that story reads like a dusty job description, it’s time to reframe. One of the most overlooked moves in a pivot is tailoring your resume for career transitions. This means pulling in verbs that show evolution, not repetition. It means organizing your narrative around decisions, outcomes, and directional change—not just duties. Your profile isn’t just a timeline. It’s a compass. Aim it.

Add Structure with a Fresh Credential

You don’t have to quit to start something new. In fact, layering in learning can breathe life into your current role while preparing you for the next one. Programs rich in practice—like those built around bachelor of business management case studies—help working professionals bridge ambition with strategy. It’s not just about theory. It’s about the frameworks that help you lead, decide, and move fast inside complex orgs. Education done right isn’t an escape. It’s fuel. It makes your next move more intentional.

Don’t Go It Alone—Find a Guide

Stuck doesn’t mean solo. And too often, professionals try to troubleshoot their own stagnation in isolation. But the importance of mentorship in career development goes deeper than advice. A mentor challenges you to explain your stuckness. They don’t give you answers—they pressure-test your reasons. They nudge your decisions into shape. And good ones? They see paths you’ve dismissed. So, whether it’s a manager, a former colleague, or a respected outsider—loop someone in. Let them mirror back what you’re missing.

Borrow Perspective Through Reverse Mentoring

You don’t always need to look up for guidance. Sometimes, looking sideways—or down the org chart—reveals more. Senior leaders across industries are now embracing reverse mentoring for career growth. The premise? Learning from younger or less experienced colleagues who have different vantage points. Maybe they know the tech better. Maybe they question legacy processes you’ve accepted. That tension? It’s gold. It forces you to explain, adapt, rethink. And in doing so, you stretch out of your plateau and back into agility.

Pivot with Purpose, Not Panic

When the itch to move gets intense, the temptation is speed. Apply everywhere. Talk to everyone. But a successful shift requires strategy. There’s a method to strategies for a successful career pivot, and it starts with pattern recognition. What have you always been drawn to? Where have you quietly succeeded? Then you reverse-engineer. You map those moments to roles that reward them. Don’t just change jobs. Change the terms. Redirect your leverage into a better-fit context. That’s the pivot that sticks.

Consider a Micro-Retirement

What if the best move isn’t a job at all? What if it’s space? Not forever—just long enough to recalibrate. The idea of evaluating the feasibility of a micro-retirement is catching on fast for a reason. It’s not laziness—it’s a strategic reset. A few months to zoom out, break the cadence, listen in. Done right, it’s the opposite of quitting. It’s a deep breath before the next surge. And in that quiet? You might just find your new edge.

A stunted career doesn’t mean failure. It means friction waiting to be used. Through reflection, mentorship, learning, rebranding, and yes—sometimes strategic pause—you can breathe motion back into stillness. Let discomfort become your signal. Let curiosity become your compass. And let bold, imperfect moves replace the endless wait for inspiration. Because the next version of your career? It’s not waiting. It’s asking.

Dive into a world of insightful essays and career reflections at Bill Ryan Writings, where imagination meets exploration—don’t miss out on the ‘Compose Your Career’ ebook for a transformative journey!

Being Valued on the Job

Posted on by Bill Ryan

So here you are putting the best you have into a job you have had for several years. The compensation is decent, but not great. However, other of your work preferences are in place such as hybrid work settings, respectable collogues, manageable work volume, and most importantly you are largely able to exercise your strengths with minimal time spent on dealing with your weak areas. On balance, it is a good job, which is why you have stuck with it this long.

But as time has gone on you find yourself wondering if your bosses really care about you. You recognize that positive feedback is important to you. Confirmation of some sort is desired in order for you to continue putting your maximum effort into this endeavor. The fact that you are questioning this at all seems to be an indication something is lacking in the rapport you have with management. Yet, you just can’t put your finger on what is missing. It leaves you feeling somewhat unfulfilled with your job.

We can look at workplaces as falling into two possible camps which I will call the traditional camp and the emotive camp. The traditional workplace has an inherent expectation that employees are there to follow the direction of management — period. Employees either fit into this assumption or they don’t. It is not the job of the employee to question the instructions they are given. If they have issue with management decisions, then the the door is just over there. The message is to shut up and do your job.

The emotive camp on the other hand is characterized by a management style that believes employees need to be heard and respected. This stems from an ethic which attaches value to having the workplace be a place of learning, adaptability, and growth. This style of manager sees the incursion of contemporary business trends like globalization, technological change such as artificial intelligence, and consumers desiring personalized brand loyalty as game changing requiring employees who can function effectively in this new normal.

As an employee it is appropriate to ask yourself which of these camps is best suited for you. In some situations and for certain personality types the traditional culture may be fine. It offers a hierarchical structure with little ambiguity concerning whose place belongs to whom. However, for increasingly more employees, especially from the Millennial and Zoomer (Gen Z) generations, top-down my-way-or-the-highway supervision is unlikely to attract and retain the talent needed to meet the demands of today’s consumers.

What are some specific practices we can expect from managers in an emotive workplace? Margaret Rogers, a business consultant with a “human-centered methods” focus cites several ways. It begins with managers accepting as a priority the need to understand their employees at a more personal level than was expected in the past. The goal is to merge conditions which accentuate optimal employee performance with the needs of the organization. It is assumed each employee has career wishes aligned with related learning goals. Arranging these objectives such that company and employees both benefit can reduce turnover.

A resiliency must be worked into the decision making process of both manager and employee so that shifts can be made which satisfy fulfillment of on-the-job opportunities. Managers must have the flexibility to make good on the matches they find to bring about enhanced employee to organization interactions. As an employee, you can feel your contributions matter to the degree that you are upskilled in ways you want to be.

Integrating varied on-the-job occasions can broaden the range of skills employees develop while also expanding the talent pool from which organizations can draw as needed. Additionally, as with any high quality learning setting, superior communication among all stakeholders is required. Constant feedback, like constant data, is useful for fine-tuning the improvements all parties rightly demand.

An emotive workplace is often an organization that puts out a product or service in an always competitive marketplace. This culture realizes that by being a learning organization and sensitive to employees’ hopes they are more likely to have an employee base committed to adaptable people management.

We left you earlier wondering why your current job is leaving you feeling unaccomplished. Maybe the above analysis will help you determine where the rub may be occurring. And if you decide a change needs to happen, don’t put it off for too long. Lasting improvements are sweeter in the near term rather than indefinitely delayed.

 

 

Reconsider Your Career

Posted on by Bill Ryan

There comes a time with all of us when we find ourselves reconsidering our career. We question why we still cling to the rationale that prompted us to settle on this career in the first place. Perhaps another bad day at work sparks doubt or your hesitation results from something deeper like a recognition of insecurity or uncertainty with the line of work you have chosen. If repeated reflections of your career role continuously point to a feeling of dissatisfaction, then it is time to act. 

The measures I am suggesting need not be sudden and radical ones like going into work tomorrow and quitting your job even though you do not have other employment lined up — although that might be an option in your case. Rather, I would like to outline a mental and emotional approach you can use to assess your situation and formulate possibilities from which future career-oriented decisions can be made. 

Unknowingly, you have already taken the first step. That is, you have acknowledged with yourself that something is wrong with your career. Stay with this insight for a while. Clarify as much as possible what is off. There could be multiple reasons behind your discontent. It will be useful for you to know as much as you can about what is not fitting. Repeating a dysfunctional pattern going forward is unhelpful and to be avoided. 

From there, attempt to visualize an ideal career position for yourself. Beware of overly restricting your imagination. Instead, allow yourself the freedom to perceive energizing possibilities in which you can express your innate talents and leverage your developing expertise. When you inevitably think about an imagined choice as, “But that is something I’ve never done before,” try to shun what might be your usual response of instant rejection and instead play with the concept as an intriguing challenge. Be open to surprising yourself. 

When brainstorming, integrate remembered examples of when you were successful. Compile your greatest hits both big and small. Look for the through line which connects these events. Is it your ability to solve stubborn problems, to be adaptive when innovation is called for, to persevere when others around you are jumping ship, to lead others even when your job title says nothing about management? There will be patterns aligned with what you are good at doing. These can be guideposts to inform you while you consider new career opportunities. 

Another avenue of thought to factor into your self-examination has to do with emerging trends. It is no secret that the world is changing. Set aside for a while your career history with its experiences and the present state of your chosen industry to forecast where your fields of interest are heading. Look for possible intersections consisting of your expertise and developing areas of growth in need of aptitude. Refreshing changes can come from leaping off your steppingstones of familiarity onto novel and steep inclines that have just enough footholds for you to master the climb. 

As fresh and exciting career potentialities take shape the time will come to assess your skillset. Are you stagnated by practicing the same tasks repeatedly? Do your imagined career possibilities call for skills you need to develop or acquire anew? Jolting yourself into expanding your capacity may prepare you for a better future but may also help you to snap you out of your current doldrums. Maybe there can even be the prospect of being able to hone new competencies while in your existing job. 

We spend way too much time with our careers to tolerate having them less than stimulating. If you are content with what you are doing, then congratulations on being part of the joyful minority. However, for the rest of you, give yourself permission to consider and act on a change to bring more purpose and fulfillment to your careers and lives.