How’s Your Mid-Career Confidence?

Here’s something no one tells you when you start your career: your success tactics at the beginning will start to sabotage you over time.

I started my media career on a sprint. I felt like I was making up for lost time (taking longer-than-expected gap years to “find myself” will do that). Every decision was guided by the mantra: every opportunity is a chance to earn or a chance to learn. This guided me through multiple job changes and promotions. With every job interview or year-end review, I was focused on what new skill I could learn, or what new experience I could gain.

Bosses loved it, and I was repeatedly rewarded for this attitude.

And then I started stalling. I couldn’t see the new lessons or opportunities from where I sat. Not only did I stop seeing new learnings from the job I had, I also couldn’t get excited for any new opportunities that came my way.

I was stuck and didn’t know how to get unstuck.