After working as a news co-anchor on Baltimore WJZ-TV, Oprah was demoted to a lower position on morning TV. Years later, she went on to dominate daytime TV for all of 25 years, and now has her own network. After failing to make the 1968 Olympic Skating figure, Vera Wang became a senior fashion editor at Vogue where she was passed over for the editor-in-chief position after 15 years. Harry Potter’s author J. K. Rowling faced 12 rejections before selling the book for only $4,000.
You may have read these success stories of women who’ve turned failure into success. Yet, the part we don’t often see is that these very women were also, at one point in their career, “stuck”. That like the rest of us who sometimes don’t see the light at the end of the tunnel, as we’re faced with rejection, or simply as we’re coasting through our careers.
One of my mentors once told me that you can approach everything as it’s an opportunity, or as if opportunity is nowhere. It changed my way of thinking, especially about my own life and career.
As uncomfortable and discouraging as it may be, a career rut can synonymous with an opportunity to reposition ourselves. If you consider that it can be the gateway to a transformation in your career, then you can gain the patience, insight and determination to turn it into success.
You may be reading this wondering what kind of woo-woo ideology this is. Especially when it comes to work. Yet, there are many instances in my own career when I was “stuck”, when this simple principle helped me place whatever situation I was in a better, more productive context.
Here are three ways you can literally trick your mind to get out of a career rut:
Own your failures
Sara Blakely, the billionaire inventor of Spanx, says her father used to ask her and her brother to recount their failures at the end of each day. This, she says, has taught her the invaluable asset that failure is.
Instead of seeing failure as an insurmountable obstacle in your career and life, own them instead. Recognize where you’ve fallen short, so you can address your weaknesses and leverage them
Learn from failing
Redefine failure in a new way, by learning from what didn’t go so well. Use these failures to re-define your career by pivoting where needed. Where can you adjust your performance to reach your goals better? How can you improve your results by targeting exactly those areas where you fell short.
As awkward as it may be, keeping a record of your failures or shortcomings at work can help you develop a winning strategy. For instance, I used to collect all the review notes I’d get from my managers to create a list of areas where I needed to pay special attention, and what I exactly needed to do in each area. End result: guaranteed progress!
Take simple steps to transform your career
Do something each day to transform your career, especially when you’re hitting a career rut. It could be as simple as keeping a “Not to do” list to avoid repeating the same mistakes.
Or identifying those very things that make you feel like you’re in a career rut, and pivoting from where you are to get closer to where you want to be.
Do you use this mindset tip to break out of a career rut?
PS: Want to read more about reaching your career? Join our “Recharge Your Career” Month challenge.
To Your Career Success,
The Corporate Sis.
