Quick, answer this question: Are you where you hoped you’d be in your career right now?
If you answer that question fast, the answer is often no. That’s okay. Lots of people feel this way, and there are several reasons why you probably feel like you’re progressing too slowly.
Although you may be feeling dissatisfied with your current progress, that may not be a bad thing. To understand this better, it’s important to pick apart the potential reasons for feeling behind and their implications for your wellbeing and progress.
Productive and unproductive dissatisfaction
“Dissatisfaction” sounds like a negative word, but plenty of research suggests that being dissatisfied with your current situation creates motivational energy that can give you the boost you need to take action. After all, when you’re utterly satisfied with everything in your life, there is no particular reason to do anything.
That’s part of the reason you don’t stay satisfied with anything you have achieved for a long time. At some point, your achievements become part of your current state of the world and you start looking for the next thing to engage in. You might think that your happiness rests on reaching a certain position in your career, but getting that promotion or recognition will not make you happy for long, because you will always find some other source of dissatisfaction that will push you toward your next goal.
Dissatisfaction is only productive, though, when there are actions you can take that will enable you to make progress toward this next goal. When you feel like you will never achieve a particular dream, that can actually be demotivating. The energy that emerges from this dissatisfaction will turn into frustration or anger at your situation rather than as engagement toward the future.
When you are feeling like you cannot achieve a particular career goal, you have a few options. One is to work with a mentor or career coach to determine whether there is a path toward your desired goal that you don’t know about. A second is to shift your goals toward something more manageable.
You might think that shifting goals involves admitting defeat. Often, though, it just means that there are interesting experiences in store for you that are not the ones you have already envisioned for yourself. By taking advantage of opportunities in front of you now, you may find yourself pursuing career paths you had never contemplated before in ways that are ultimately quite rewarding.
Social comparisons
A big source of dissatisfaction comes from upward social comparisons. An upward social comparison is when you compare yourself to someone else who is better off than you are in some way, such has having a more prestigious job.
These comparisons are natural, and you can always find someone who is similar to you who is making more money, getting a significant promotion, or getting public recognition for their work. This kind of competition can provide some energy you can use to push forward in your career, but it’s dangerous to measure your success solely by how you stack up against others. You will have a hard time feeling good about the work you do if define success as being at the top of the heap.
Instead, focus on comparing yourself to yourself. Whenever you make a résumé, keep a copy. When you fill out your yearly HR evaluation, put it in a folder on your computer that you can access later. Periodically, when you are feeling like you have not yet accomplished all of your career goals, take a look back at where you were a year or two ago. Look at the growth in knowledge, skills, and responsibilities that you have gotten.
The reason why you need that written record is that the past blurs quickly. It can be hard to remember what you were thinking, feeling, and hoping even a year ago. As a result, you often do not realize that the person you were a year or two ago would probably be thrilled to be where you are right now. So, instead of feeling like you’re career is moving too slowly, take a look back at your past self (as reflected in those résumés and evaluations) to remind yourself just how much you have achieved—even if you do know a few other people whose careers are progressing even faster than your own.