Professional stagnation is a feeling that can sneak up on you without realising it, it occurs when you lose your passion or your spark for your work. In so many cases it happens when you consistently do not see positive changes within your career or feel that you are losing your professional skills, similarly to how muscles atrophy.
This can happen at any time of life, from young professionals stuck in the same position to seasoned veterans who are at the top of their game. As much as it can happen to anyone, strangely, it is also a wholly independently and individual experience, no one person suffering the exact same variables & career factors is likely to feel the same.
The Personal Effects
On a personal level this feeling can cause a plethora of effects, it can:
- Make you lethargic and tired within work times.
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Shatter or derail your concentration.
- Or even worse, it can lead to complacency and mistakes.
Complacency
Complacency can in itself have hugely detrimental effects on the individual and the team in which they work.
The official definition of complacency is ‘a feeling of smug or uncritical satisfaction with oneself or one’s achievements. However, we prefer to look at it as the use of the words ‘That’ll do’. This can lead to resentment within a team with unsatisfactory work passing where it shouldn’t, other team members ‘picking up the slack’. Resentment can spread and cause efficiency to plummet. This can lead to a loss of business earnings, redundancy, questions from senior management and even HR inquiries.
The Good News
The good news is that whomever and wherever you may be, you can combat this feeling, from small changes to the infinitely more radical:
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A simple shift in perspective can help. Focusing on the positive aspects of your work can have miraculous effects; this will be slow at first, however, focusing on the positives can strengthen neurological pathways; leading to easier recall of positive experiences. Much like Sisyphus and his boulder, this must be done every day, but it gets easier with repetition.
We at Azesta have made a small aid to help you with this process, a gratitude journal, it helps to prompt you to write down your positive experiences and look back at those positive experiences that have come before. Check it out here.
- Undertaking training to develop new skills and provide you with fresh day-to-day working practice as well as new opportunities for career progression. This can do a world of good for individual fulfilment while introducing new skill sets to a team’s repertoire, increasing efficiency and potentially helping with innovative ideas.
If you are looking for some of these skills and are not quite sure about what would suit, or which skills would add value to you feel free to check out our website or get in touch.
- The final of our suggestions is to transfer careers. If either of the previous ideas cannot help, a more radical change may be needed. Our suggestion is to consider an apprenticeship.
Apprenticeships are great opportunities for people of all ages and skill sets and are especially helpful with established workers who would like to do something different as you work towards a qualification while not giving up your main income stream. We have lots more information on apprenticeships if it interests you on our apprenticeships page.
