Question: Why is my career not progressing while my peers move further along?
Dear Job Hunter,
First of all, I am sorry to hear that your career is not progressing the way you want it to. I know that can be frustrating.
There are three reasons your career may not be progressing:
1. Your skills are not strong enough.
2. You do not have a clear strategy.
3. You are not executing your strategy.
Let’s tackle these three issues:
1. Your skills
The only way your career can progress is if your skills progress. You have to be willing to make the commitment to being the best at what you do and deliver at a high level.
If you are not in high demand, then you become a commodity. The company you work with must value what you do so much, that they fear losing you. If they do not fear losing you, then they do not see much value in the work you do.
And if they don’t see the value in your work, new opportunities that will allow you to progress in your career will not present themselves.
2. Lack of strategy
If you want to see your career progress, then you need a clear strategy. You need to have a game plan in mind and know how to maneuver and position yourself.
Business is a game and you need a strategy. Just like playing any other game, you need to start with the end goal, and then figure out the moves you need to make to get to where you want to go.
It’s like chess.
3. Executing your strategy
Let’s assume for a moment that you do have a strategy and you are still not progressing. Well, then this is showing you that either you are not executing your strategy correctly or you have a flawed strategy.
You are a business. And like any business, you need to set up benchmarks. If you are not hitting your benchmarks, then you need to either re-evaluate your plan or be honest with yourself about not executing your plan properly.