I Feel Stuck in My Career. Where Do I Even Start?
Estimated Reading Time: 5–6 minutes
There are few words I hear more often than these.
"I just feel stuck."
Sometimes they're spoken quietly across a desk.
Sometimes they arrive in an email after months of uncertainty.
Sometimes they're followed by tears.
Frustration.
Even embarrassment.
People often assume they're the only one who feels this way.
They're not.
Feeling stuck isn't a sign of failure. It usually means you're standing at a point where something in your work or life no longer fits, but you can't quite see what comes next.
I've been there more than once myself.
Early in my working life, I was a tradesman. After six years I was made redundant. I knew one thing: I didn't want to spend the rest of my career in that trade. The problem was I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do instead.
For two weeks I felt sorry for myself.
Then I picked up the phone and called the parent of a friend who worked in the club industry. I had almost no experience. Just a short TAFE hospitality course and a willingness to learn. I told them I'd happily start at the bottom.
I started as a GPU.
A Glass Picker Upper.
Not exactly glamorous.
I also cleaned ashtrays.
Yes... it really was that long ago.
It wasn't my dream job.
It was simply a job for now.
That "job for now" became a career I loved for the next thirty years.
Looking back, I couldn't possibly have planned that.
Careers have a funny way of making sense in the rear-view mirror.
Years later I left my CEO role because mentally and physically I knew it was time for a change. Once again I didn't know exactly what came next.
Employment services followed.
Career development followed.
Eventually, I completed a Graduate Certificate in Career Development because I wanted to better understand how people make career decisions.
Then illness interrupted life again. I stepped away from work thinking I was retiring.
That retirement lasted about a week.
Today I'm writing this from Waypoint Careers.
Looking back, none of those chapters began with a grand master plan.
They were simply the next step.
You don’t need the perfect career decision.
You just need the next good one.
The myth of the perfect career decision
One of the biggest misconceptions I see is the belief that people need to figure out the rest of their career before they make a move.
It's a belief that places enormous pressure on people.
What if there isn't one perfect answer?
What if your next decision doesn't need to define the next thirty years?
Sometimes it only needs to define the next six months.
Sometimes the best decision is simply choosing a direction that gives you more information than standing still ever will.
That first hospitality job wasn't supposed to become my life's work.
It simply became the right next step.
Why clarity comes before confidence
Many people wait until they feel confident before making a career decision.
That can keep them stuck.
Start by getting clearer instead.
Get clearer about what matters to you.
Get clearer about the kind of work that brings out your best.
Get clearer about the strengths you already have.
As your direction becomes clearer, taking the next step feels easier.
And that's when confidence often begins to grow.
You probably have more to offer than you realise
One of my favourite parts of career counselling is helping people recognise strengths they've stopped seeing.
We're often excellent at remembering our mistakes.
We're much less skilled at recognising our successes.
I call these ordinary superpowers.
They're ordinary because they often feel completely normal to the person who possesses them.
They're superpowers because they're exactly the qualities employers, colleagues and communities value.
The challenge isn't creating them.
It's recognising them.
If you're feeling stuck today
Take a breath.
You don't need to solve your entire career this week.
Ask yourself:
What do I already know about myself that I might be overlooking?
What sort of work brings out your best?
What's one useful step I could take this week?
Small steps create momentum.
Momentum creates clarity.
Clarity builds confidence.
One final thought
Careers are rarely straight lines.
They're collections of experiences, unexpected opportunities, setbacks, conversations and moments of courage.
Sometimes the next chapter begins with certainty.
More often, it begins with a single conversation.
If you're feeling stuck, you don't have to figure it all out on your own.
Sometimes all you need...
...is someone to help you see what you've been carrying with you all along.
If that's where you find yourself, I'd be delighted to explore your next step with you during a complimentary 15-minute consultation.
You don't need to have your entire career mapped out today.
You just need enough clarity to take the next step.
Take a moment...
What's one experience in your life that once felt like "just a job" but ended up teaching you something valuable about yourself?
Take a minute to write it down.
You might discover it has shaped you more than you realised.