How stuck am I? 3 assessments tools (brilliant for data-lovers)
Aged 51, in northern Norway, I learned how to cross-country ski. It was one of my bigger, harder experiments.
Hands down, the trickiest thing was deciding how many layers to wear each day.
In the first hour, we beginners were all dressed in padded, downhill ski-gear. By the second hour, we'd all swapped to light, waterproof jackets. By the third some of us had stripped down to vests!
The better we got at assessing our skills and matching them to the day ahead, the easier it was for each of us to choose the right clothes to wear.
And by day three, we'd all found our version of the perfect cross-country ski outfits for a 25km jaunt in minus 12 degrees.
It's the same with feeling career stuck…we need data to help us decide the way forward.
Me after the 20th fall, in Venabu, Norway, wondering if cross-country skiing was for me. Assessing what to wear each day got easier as we got better data on the conditions, the daily goals and our skills.
The dangers of not being able to assess how [career] stuck we are
We don't know which action to take
A tweak, a leap or a pivot? A new challenge, a new job or a new industry?
A step backwards, sideways or upwards?
Small changes or eject the baby with the bath water?
When we feel overwhelmed, we do nothing.
We move too early/too late
Do we apply for that job now or wait for a better one to come along?
Do we make a decision now or cling on, waiting for X [impending voluntary redundancy/company acquisition, shares vesting] to happen?
All options seems fraught with danger. Uncertainty. And worry.
What if we get even more tired and bored while we’re waiting?
Stuck becomes our familiar (aka normal) state
If we sit in the wrong spot for a long time, it becomes our familiar state.
We get comfy with the awfulness of it. It starts to become our normal.
It doesn't seem that bad.
It can start to feel…safe - even though we know it's not. [See article called 50-year-old corporate toast]
So we wait for something big to happen - to jolt us out of our familiar.
But, when that happens, we’re less ready for change. Less prepared. And it can come as a shock.
Without assessing the quality or depth of our stuckness, we simply know that we feel…stuck.
Zero assessment. Just a feeling.
And that feeling, isn’t really that helpful, is it?
Why assessing how stuck you are is hard.
Assessing how stuck you are is important…but tricky.
Here's what makes assessement tricky:
Your situation is totally unique, totally personal.
And this makes it feel kind of…lonely.
Privately, you scour the internet to find inspiration.
Maybe someone in the same industry, same role, same family/personal situation etc. who has magically solved their problem?
(Sshh…) Ideally in an easy-peasy, simple-as-pie, overnight-success kind of way ;)
2. It's hard to talk about feeling stuck with friends and family.
You feel sure that no-one will understand what's going on inside your head, right?
Because, let's face it, you're struggling to form the thoughts in your own head into straight lines…how could anyone else understand?
And you know that your partner/child/parent/sister/best friend just wants you to be “happy”.
And often they think a new job will make you “happy”.
It’s nice easy-peasy, simple-as-pie thinking.
But you know…simple-as-pie thinking isn’t helping.
3. We're tough.
We don't want to give up. We think we can make it better. We tell ourselves daily “It will get better…won't it?”
We can do hard things, right?
Sure…but not for years.
There’s a point when hard things move from feeling like "a challenge" to feeling like ‘death by a thousand paper cuts’.
None of us need to be that tough.
Why bother…?
Assessing how stuck you are, uniquely, gives you data. Clarity. Comparison points. Options. Choices.
Assessing your situation lets you decide if you should stay or go.
It gives you insights that help you think more clearly through your options. Not dreamy options - reality options.
It gives you data to help you decide - Should resign or redesign. Or both.
Three ideas to help you assess how stuck you are.
Quick and dirty ( 60 seconds - Free )
The Midlife Unstuck Stuckness Assessment takes 60 ish seconds.
All you have to do is read the classifications below and see which feels closest to how you feel now.
Couldn’t be easier.
THIS ASSESSMENT TOOL IS FOR YOU IF: You're not sure you're ready to take any action at all. You just want to sense-check common patterns in career stuckness. In less than a minute. Quick and dirty.
A quick and dirty free tool to help you assess how career stuck you are and to choose the right moment to redesign your work.
2. Boost your Midlife Joy-at-work Quiz (5 minutes - Free)
You're less interested in assessing why you feel career stuck. You know enough and you’re getting ready to DO something about it.
You want to know where to focus your efforts so that you can enjoy your work more.
And you don’t where to start…yet.
The Boost your midlife joy-at-work quiz is your starter assessment point.
With numerical results across the five major influencers joy-at-work in my research over the last seven years.
The results are personalised, based on your response to 100 questions - written by me.
The midlife joy-at-work quiz results will help you:
Figure out where to begin adding more joy-at-work
Uncover your joy-at-work blind-spots
Understand your strongest joy-at-work areas
Realise your biggest gaps that hinder your joy-at-work potential
Take the free 5 minute quiz now HERE or click the image.
It’s a free 5-minute quiz…not brain surgery, but here’s what others have said….
"I need more fun and joy in my career - but didn't have a clue where to start. This quiz got me off point-zero."
Jenny, 40s, Marketing Lead, Midlands, UK
"I can't believe the value you've offered in a free quiz. I'd downloaded my results to take a deeper look this weekend. Thanks!"
Rennie, 50s, Sales Director, Colorado, US.
“Half way through the quiz, I felt the urge to give up. Until I realised that was how I ended up here! The results showed me the two major problem areas that are blockinging my joy-at-work - with recommendations.”
Jon, 50s, HR, Boston, US.
THIS ASSESSMENT TOOL IS FOR YOU IF: You know things are wrong. You know you're not where you want to be. You want to know how close you are to being ready to experience sustainable joy-at-work.
3. The Derailed! Diagnostic (30mins - £29)
My book publishers and I worked together again (we created The Fierce Emporium together) to create an assessment tool that reveals your life-satisfaction across ten important areas of life.
After answering 100 questions (designed by me) you'll receive your results including short videos on how to use your results to drive towards action.
That sounds kind of dry - but my alter-ego Loochia is in there entertaining you with stories to make you think more deeply about ten areas of life than you ever have in the past.
THIS IS FOR YOU IF: If you like data, assessments, analyses to help you understand how stuck you are, this little programme will help you. In half an hour, you'll know where to start to focus on your work and life happiness.
Access Derailed! Diagnostic today HERE
Use data to make decisions
Assessing your career stuckness is a lot like assessing what clothes to wear when you’re on the first day of cross-country skiing school in Norway.
But when you have data (the weather, the speed of moment, your internal thermometre, the distance to travel) you can make better decisions on how to move forward.
There are three ways to assess your career included in this article.
Choose one, two or all three of them to assess your career stuckness and the impacts on the rest of your life-beyond-work.
Use the insights to help you think more clearly about whether you can stay where you are, or whether you need to redesign your work to suit you and your future life goals.
Find out more about the Midlife Unstuck career design programmes:
Personalised Career Redesign - there are two options to work one-to-one with Lucia which vary depending on desire for speed and depth of guidance.
DIY career redesign programme with extraordinary group support - The Fierce Emporium.
