Opinion
Why one good idea could save your languishing career
By Jim Bright
Feeling stuck is perhaps the most common career problem. Feeling that our career is no longer flowing freely or that we are trapped somehow can be frustrating, stressful, and even depressing.
It can lead to disengagement with work, and if not checked, can lead to a broader sense of ennui that has the potential to infect other aspects of our lives including personal relationships. It is why when we feel stuck we are so hungry for ideas to become unstuck. And those ideas can be where the trouble really starts.
When careers become stuck, most commonly it is due to a crisis of imagination. A good idea can change that.Credit: Alamy
It turns out that we can get stuck in many ways. Being stuck in a rut very often is the trigger to do something about one’s career. It is the feeling that we are limited to repeating the same old tasks day in and day out with no sense of any change of direction, nor any challenge or novelty, just remorselessly ploughing the same furrows up and down until we retire.
It can be mind-numbing to apply skills that we mastered eons ago with no prospect of acquiring any more. Perhaps if we work on a computer, the highlight of our year is a software upgrade that changes the colour scheme or adds a new emoji to our repertoire.
We can become stuck as victims of our own success. Understandably, organisations are greedy for success, and like a two-year-old, if they see you doing something they like, they cry “again”. Just ask actors who become typecast about the dangers inherent in playing the same role or musicians requested only to play their hits.
There is a tipping point where creativity becomes automated. The actor Alec Guinness, who was famous not only for Star Wars but also for playing nine characters in the film Kind Hearts and Coronets, hated repetition.
When we are stuck, we are both in need of good ideas and vulnerable to bad ideas.
In an interview with the BBC many years ago, he explained he loved the rehearsal period – usually a month or two for theatre work, where he could create new characters and bring them to life. Once the play opened, he said the acting became like “any other 9-to-5 job”.
The actor Kenneth Williams was notorious for becoming easily bored, and by the second week of the run, would deliberately improvise material and go off script to the consternation of his fellow thespians. It was Joe Orton as you’ve never seen before, folks!
When careers become stuck, most commonly, it is due to a crisis of imagination. We have run out of ideas about how to do different things or do things differently. This is when good ideas are most valuable.
The trouble is good ideas are like Taylor Swift tickets: they are in short supply. The chemist Linus Pauling advised that the way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas. Daryl Kerrigan, in the film The Castle, was lucky to have his ideas man Dale on hand. We all need a few Dale Kerrigans in our lives to encourage us with new ideas and possibilities.
But when we are stuck, we are both in need of good ideas and vulnerable to bad ideas. If we have a strong thirst for career refreshment, we are apt to clutch at straws (with apologies to Thomas More). This can be catastrophic.
However, ignoring advice can also present difficulties. Have you noticed how easily offended some people become if their advice is not heeded? It is from that point on that your ignored “friend” bides their time sullenly waiting for your inevitable demise for having the temerity to follow a different path.
To get unstuck or to stay unstuck it is sensible always to be generating ideas and being open to new ideas. However, the trick is to have the confidence to determine which ideas work for you and which should be consigned to the bin of heroic failures.
Dr Jim Bright FAPS owns Bright and Associates, a career management consultancy, and is director of evidence & impact at BECOME Education an Ed Tech start-up www.become.education. Email to opinion@jimbright.com. Follow him on Twitter @DrJimBright
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