Q. What tends to hold people stuck in jobs they hate?
A. I think people feel that it’s a failure of some sort to move away from their job when technically there’s nothing wrong with it—or nothing visible to others! I’d go so far to say the idea of leaving work they hate sparks a shame spiral. Shame is one of those self-conscious emotions that really only exists when we think about the judgement of others looking in, yet it’s powerful enough to hold people stuck.
Another powerful source of stuckness happens when someone is, perhaps, too rational, reasoning that it’s irresponsible to leave work that makes your world go round financially. Likewise, that it’s also reckless and risky to move away from the work that you have experience doing.
And there’s one more of these cultural constraints that is so deeply embedded we don’t even notice where we get the idea from, concerning the career ladder. I’d place vast amounts of money on the idea that you will be familiar with the idea that we start at the bottom of a career ladder and climb our way up over time. It’s why it feels unthinkable to quit when we’re high up one ladder only to swap to the bottom of a different one. We feel like we’d lose status and respect, financial security, and the very sense of who we are. Despite us feeling deeply unhappy and less and less like ourselves, the risk of trying something to fix that somehow feels too great. I’m actually a firm believer in lateral ladders and the idea that it’s better to be at the bottom of the ladder you want to be on than at the top of one you don’t!
Q. Why is remaining in a role you hate a bad idea in the long-term?
A. The impact of remaining in a role you loathe is enormous over time, and that’s not a luxury problem. The kind of dissonance that sets in when you tolerate doing work you hate every single day is truly toxic and as progressive as any disease. I’m not exaggerating when I say it can be very damaging to somebody’s mental fitness to try and contort themselves into a career context that just doesn’t fit—or not anymore. When we persevere too long in a professional lane that is working against us, there’s an inner conflict so significant that in the end the person wants the suffering to stop so much that they just make the easiest decision to achieve that. The problem is that the easiest solution and the closest route to resolving the inner conflict is not usually the better path. That’s the reason they’re feeling conflicted about their career in the first place.
Despite hating your situation, it’s really hard to disrupt your status quo because it’s uncomfortable to make change happen. But disruption isn’t going to feel more convenient later and it’s important to know that the growth and evolution you secretly harbour for yourself is only just the other side of that discomfort zone.
Q. What is key to successfully getting unstuck?
A. The most important thing is clarity. Put simply, how can you hope any fresh plan for a different future will be successful unless you have crystal-clear clarity about what that new way of working needs to align with for you to feel fulfilled doing it. That might read like one straightforward thing but the kind of self-awareness that it requires is far from simple, taking work and effort to become confident in your inventory of strengths and career must-haves.
In some ways, this kind of career clarity is the hard yards of any purposeful career redesign. However, succeeding relies on how you use that self-insight. How successful someone is in getting unstuck relies on the change they’re willing to make in the real world. I’m a strong believer that career transformation isn’t swooping and dramatic but actually works best when change takes place one small, safe, agile step at a time—where you never stop learning from real-life information gathering and experimenting with the idea you’ve had for your different future. In that way you’re never really going to be pushing forward on a plan just because you planned it when you were frantic for an exit strategy. And that’s the key to successfully getting unstuck: hesitating long enough to gain career clarity then having patience to work the formula and act on a redesign idea that is fully formed and well aligned. That, and knowing when to stop pushing forward and start evaluating again.
Q. How can you know that the grass will be any greener in another career?
A. By having truly taken the time to explore that other career before you make any sweeping changes and move into it with unrealistic hope. The kind of hope that the grass will be greener in another career needs to be tested in reasonably small, real-life pilot tests that give you real insight, practice, or experience of the other career.
Sometimes that might be conversational, where you collect stories from other people who are already where you wish you could be next. But it also needs to be providing experiential insight so you can stop thinking about how you’d feel in this alternative career and start noticing how the different environment or scope of work or culture affects you in real ways. Is it everything you hoped for? Does it make you realise that one element of what you might do next is more compelling than the overall idea you had initially?
Persevering with any plan can actually hinder our progress and lead us down the wrong path entirely so it’s hugely important to recognise when to pivot or change course in order to achieve the career redesign goal effectively. It’s all-important to embrace the flexibility to explore, test, and adapt as needed to know if the grass will be greener! In other words, adopt an agile career mindset rather than blindly persisting towards greener pastures.
Q. Does a career transformation need to be dramatic?
A. The words ‘transition’ and ‘transformation’ conjure up feelings of high risk and scary steps. In truth, our fastest route to career transformation happens one small, safe step at a time and actually that is the concept I’m introducing in Unstuck. There’s a lot to think about with purposeful career redesign and absolutely none of it is dramatic—or shouldn’t be. What it should be is an incredibly well-considered, highly bespoke, and utterly compelling journey you’re excited to go on and which, done well, happens to be transformative. I encourage those I work with to think of this as a quest and in the book I talk about going on a “What Next Quest”.
Actually, I think our career problems are probably something we should never stop solving, and if we arrive at the right redesign problem in the first place, we won’t want to!
Q. How did your own career redesign come about, and how do you feel now compared to in your previous career?
A. My career transition began when I realised I couldn’t balance my professional life with motherhood. After being made redundant from a board-level role, I chose to work as a part-time consultant for a smaller firm, prioritising my mothering responsibilities. Although I initially felt liberated, this changed when I was offered a permanent position. Despite my initial excitement, I felt disheartened when I signed the contract. My boss later told me they expected my complete dedication, leading to a difficult conversation about my boundaries. This misunderstanding made my role untenable, and I eventually left, which placed me at a career crossroads which I spent a messy few years navigating.
During this time, I had a second child and moved to America. While I engaged in various projects, none fulfilled me. Looking back, I realise I hadn’t taken stock of my skills or career needs. Eventually, I pursued a second degree in psychology, which marked a turning point. Since then, I’ve felt more aligned and alive in my career than ever before. My clients are more than just calendar appointments; I am passionate about my work and constantly eager to learn. Though not every aspect of my job is enjoyable, I have the autonomy to set boundaries and acknowledge when it’s smarter to avoid tasks that don’t suit me.
Now, when something doesn’t feel right, I navigate differently. On Sunday nights, I look forward to the week ahead and appreciate the free time to pursue other interests. My schedule is carefully curated to maintain balance, a skill I’ve honed through experience. This alignment has made my professional life not only fulfilling but also sustainable.
Q. What is the most satisfying part of helping people become unstuck?
A. Seeing the difference that it makes to them. Remembering the start of our coaching relationship, back when they were in the grips of career stuckness and the untenable cost that was coming at, is enormously important to revisit. Illuminating how far they have come towards the end of our work together is usually very moving, and not just for them! The most satisfying piece for me happens when we spend time comparing the aliveness that I observe in them as they achieve everything they wanted (and sometimes quite a bit more) to their experience at the start of our coaching relationship. But I think the most meaningful thing for me is not the change they’ve made happen in their real world; actually, it’s the self-belief that they have the tools and fluency about their self-expertise to ensure they won’t get stuck again.
Q. Why did you decide to write a book on becoming unstuck?
A. Over the years I’ve seen so much commonality in the stages people need to go through to accept all the things that are wrong about their current context and to give themselves permission to re-evaluate what they have available—then act on their ideas to make change happen. When you can see the cost of feeling horribly stuck—doing that thing they do every day despite feeling in the grips of despair—you feel compelled to share what has a strong chance of helping them get unstuck.
And because I’ve also experienced what readers are going through, I really do know how incredibly important navigating stuckness can be—and what a difference it makes when you do.
Q. What do you hope readers gain most from the book?
A. I obviously hope readers will find the concepts introduced in the book thought-provoking and stimulating to learn about. But more than that, I genuinely hope that readers will listen when I ask them to put the book down and use the resources and exercises (available via various QR codes in the book) to really apply learnings to their own context. That is how readers will do more than inhale information and collect concepts, and actually act on something that serves them. If they do that in every chapter, by the end of the book they will have moved through the proven formula for purposeful career redesign and have moved far closer to their wanted future—which, in the end, is my ultimate hope.
Unstuck: A Smart Guide to Purposeful Career Redesign by Helen Hanison (GameChanger Publishing) is available on Amazon in paperback, hardcover, and eBook formats, priced £11.99, 18.99, and £6.99 respectively. To purchase a copy, click here. For more information, visit www.helenhanison.com or join Helen’s career redesign community on LinkedIn.
If you’re at a career crosswords, Unstuck provides invaluable insights and tools for turning your dreams of finding a fulfilling and meaningful profession that you will love into reality. In this exclusive extract, leadership coach Helen Hanison explains how to avoid ending up stuck in the past … or the present.
I’m wondering what stories you tell yourself. I ask because they are all interconnected. The stories we narrate about our lives and pivotal moments, how we function in the real world, and thus, the outcomes we attract in our careers and lives generally.
And at this point, we’re working hard to become very aware of anything that might threaten to hold you stuck because you’ve come up with a purposeful career redesign idea that you want to convert into your different future. So, let’s get to the crux of what has become triggering for you, rethink that, and debunk the myth that any failures are all our own fault. That’s how we will pause and reflect on how much we’ve accidentally become the narrative we’ve constructed. That doesn’t serve us, which is the single most important first step in pivoting to a new and improved narrative, one that actually serves you and supports your career redesign.
Then, you get to shake off the power of the past, decide for yourself what you want for your future and know why that matters.
I often think this is where we need to think differently about what we’ve been taught about stories. I think we’re taught storytelling in quite a linear and formulaic way. When it comes to narrating our own lives, I believe there’s something smarter about a zigzag idea than any linear narrative because life is and probably should be messier than that. There are setbacks, twists and turns, peaks and troughs, which will not always feel comfortable but are good, or at least better than flat-lining.
These ups and downs in life shape who we are. And our responses to life events are how our values evolve. Sometimes, there will be a necessary change of direction, which is why the zigzag concept makes sense to me. It’s as if we are in a swimming pool and, upon hitting the side, find it jarring. Yet, this is also needed because it allows us to push off into another direction again at a good speed and with momentum.
How Andy Got Unstuck After His Health Scare
This is a story that took some unpacking but explains how the narratives we tell ourselves become so influential. Going back in time for “Andy,” there were memories and stories of a career dad who was often absent for work reasons. Fun was had, but always in defined pockets of time. As Andy became an adult, that relationship became about drinking together. It was the way he built rapport with Dad, and it carried through to his career context, too, because drinking in the sector Andy worked in also secured belonging and acceptance.
This particular story carries on in the same unhealthy manner until Andy experiences a frightening cardiac event. However, he responds to that shocking wake-up call by working hard for career clarity and pivoting to a very different way of working. He moved country and redesigned a purposeful portfolio career that puts being present for his wife and children first and surfing a close second! We keep doing things we don’t want to when we’re out of touch with the place these stories are coming from.
Andy’s story is a good example of how rewinding the stories we tell ourselves helps get to the crux of what has become toxic or triggering. While the connected narratives were playing an automatic and unconscious role, Andy could do the work to change that once the connections became visible. When you finally have that kind of clarity, you can regulate instead of react to uninvited obstacles and happenings and your growing need to redesign your career and life. It’s how you get to think again from fresh perspectives and respond differently to attract the different outcome you want for yourself and get unstuck.
I hope some of that is sparking ideas for what your version might be. I would say take a break now and recognise your past stories are inescapable as we build towards a confident career redesign. But you are in control when you tune in and find the connections between your old stories, your reactions and choices today and the outcomes you attract.
