By Rema Lolas, Founder & CEO at Unstoppable Leadership Inc.
Navigating your career growth can feel like a challenging journey, and many women find themselves stalled in their careers, especially when internal barriers such as a lack of clarity, fear of failure or other societal expectations come into play. In this article, we shed light on some of the biggest obstacles to career progress that you may identify with and provide actionable steps to begin to overcome them.
First: The Importance of Clarity
Clarity is the foundation of career growth. It is important to create an understanding of where you are and where you want to be. What do you want? Without a clear understanding of your current position and your desired future, it’s challenging to identify the necessary steps or chart a course to bridge the gap. Gaining clarity requires awareness, observation and oftentimes a deep self-assessment (deeper than you’ve looked before), so you can evaluate your strengths, weaknesses, passions and values.
Tips to gain clarity:
- Identify your current position: Reflect on your current role, skills and achievements. What do you enjoy about where you are? What, if anything, would you like to change or expand?
- Visualize your future: Envision where you want to be in your career in the next 5–10 years. What will you be doing? What will you have achieved? If you are unable to get in touch with what you want, think about what you don’t want, and flip them to the opposite.
- Gap analysis: Determine the skills, experiences and qualifications needed to reach your goals. Who might be able to help you through mentoring, offering introductions or giving you a shot?
Barriers to clarity:
Many women struggle to gain clarity due to internalized fears and societal conditioning. These barriers often manifest as:
- Fear of being selfish: Women are often taught to prioritize others’ needs over their own, leading to guilt and fear of judgment. This fear makes them think focusing on personal and professional ambitions is selfish.
- Judgment and comparison: Fear of judgment from others and self-comparison can paralyze progress. Focusing on what others think diminishes self-trust and discounts our internal thoughts. Comparing ourselves to others’ paths is irrelevant and counterproductive.
- People-pleasing: Saying “Yes” when we want to say “No” fills our time with projects and opportunities that don’t necessarily align with our plan or goals. This leads to living someone else’s plan rather than progressing our own. Leaders must learn to say “No” or compromise to achieve their desired outcomes.
- Lack of boundaries: Overcommitting and failing to set boundaries can lead to burnout and a lack of focus on personal goals. Without clarity about what you want, it’s hard to set boundaries about what fits or doesn’t. This protects your time, energy and resources for the most important things.
- Fear of not knowing how: The fear of not knowing the steps to achieve goals can cause paralysis, preventing action and progress. Remember, no one knows how to do everything on the first go. It takes trial and error, action to get feedback and the willingness to continue or pivot. Start with small, consistent actions.
Then: Build Confidence
Once clarity is achieved, the next step is to build the confidence to pursue your goals. This involves challenging and changing the limiting narratives, beliefs and behaviors that have unconsciously been holding you back.
Steps to build confidence:
- Acknowledge your fears: Recognize common fears such as fear of failure and even fear of success. Identify what resonates with you and what is holding you back.
- Reframe negative narratives: Challenge limiting beliefs and narratives to transform them into empowering ones. Our ego (which is our protective self) likes to tell us lies to keep us “safe” or stuck. Growth lives outside our comfort zone, so we need to tackle being comfortable with being uncomfortable. So, check in to see if the “threat” is real or imaginary.
- Practice self-compassion: Be kind to yourself and acknowledge your progress. Remember, you are evolving, learning and on a journey.
- Take action: Taking action is important for building confidence, especially as we do things for the first time. (See the last step in this article.)\
Tips for recognizing blockers in confidence:
- Pay attention to emotions that arise: Emotions are energy in motion, indicating something significant for us. Notice any strong emotions that arise as they are signposts to deeper challenges and begin to inquire about what is happening for you.
- Observe resistance: Resistance can manifest as procrastination, avoidance or any strong emotion. When you feel resistance rising within you, it’s a sign that you’ve found a meaningful blocker.
- Reflect on procrastination: If you find yourself procrastinating on certain tasks or goals, it often indicates underlying fears or doubts that need to be addressed.
- Mind your self-talk: Negative self-talk or doubts can be indicators of deeper confidence issues. Pay attention to your inner dialogue and challenge negative thoughts and judgments that might arise.
- Seek feedback: Sometimes, it’s hard to see our own blockers. Ask trusted colleagues, mentors or friends for feedback on areas where you might be holding yourself back.
Next: Empower Communication
With confidence comes the ability to communicate your needs and aspirations effectively. This takes practice, too. Don’t expect to run before you can walk in any of these steps. When you have your plan of action, you need to communicate, communicate and communicate. Communicate where you want to go so people know and understand and can help you along. As a leader, if you have goals and want to lead a team someplace, who will follow if you haven’t communicated?
Steps for Empowering Communication:
- Clear communication: Learn to articulate your career goals to supervisors and mentors. Remember, you are not resigning but acknowledging interests in growth or other areas. If your leader is not open to this conversation, consider if you are in the right place.
- Self-advocacy: Advocate for your own needs and career development. Share your plan and ask for advice and pointers. You have a much better chance of getting what you want when you ask and don’t expect others to mind-read.
- Networking: Build a supportive network that encourages your growth. Be your own biggest cheerleader and find a tribe of other supportive individuals who have your back.
- Check your narratives: We can hold ourselves back by believing a conversation or communication is going to be “difficult” or harder than it needs to be. When we generalize and label all conversations as “challenging,” we naturally want to avoid them. Instead, approach each conversation with an open mind and see it as an opportunity rather than a hurdle.
- Check your mind-reading: Remember, we only know what we know and can’t really read others’ minds. Get curious and seek to understand others’ perspectives instead of assuming you know their thoughts. Letting go of mind-reading and a potential victim mentality can open up a whole new world of possibilities and more productive interactions.
Last: Take Action
Action is needed for each of the previous steps to ensure you put your career plan into action. Action is the bridge between clarity and achievement. It involves taking consistent, small steps toward your goals and celebrating as you go.
Action Plan for Career Growth:
- Set powerful goals: These are positive goals that you can take ownership of. Know the details of WHAT, WHEN and WHERE. Ensure they make sense for you and that you have the resources, both internal and external, to achieve the goal.
- Create an action plan: Outline the steps needed to achieve each goal. Break these down so you can track your progress.
- Seek support: Utilize mentors, coaches and resources such as the Unstoppable Women Career Coaching program to help you fast-track your journey.
Conclusion
Career growth is a journey that begins with awareness and clarity of where you are, where you want to be and what is in the gap or potentially stopping you. By understanding your current position, defining your goals and taking actionable steps, you can overcome internal and external barriers.
Embrace the process, seek support and take charge of your career today!
About the Author
Rema Lolas is Founder and CEO of Unstoppable Leadership, which helps bridge the gap to high performance for teams and individuals. After an extensive career in the tech channel, holding global and regional leadership positions, Rema is on a mission to revolutionize leadership and team development.
Her journey through traditional leadership paths, marked by the challenges of burnout and chronic fatigue, has shaped her resilience and ignited a determination to transform leadership development. Drawing from her personal experiences and years of expertise in leadership, enablement and development, Rema envisions a new breed of leadership development and training. Her innovative approach strives for outstanding results while honoring the well-being of each individual.
Rema is also an active member of the Alliance of Channel Women (ACW), serving as an ACW Education Committee member and ACW Strategic Partner, leading the Unstoppable Women career coaching program.
Unstoppable Women Career Coaching Program for ACW Members
Are you ready to break free from the barriers holding you back so you can gain clarity, overcome overwhelm or burnout, and sustainably take the next step in your career? The Unstoppable Women Career Coaching Program for ACW offers comprehensive resources and support to help you achieve your career aspirations. Learn more about the program, including your ACW member discount, or book a call to discuss how you can take charge of your career growth.
ACW Treasurer & Finance Committee Chair Ashley Cole says:
“The Unstoppable Women course was content that I knew I wanted, but I didn’t realize how much I NEEDED. I learned more about myself, my feelings, my goals and forming boundaries in this 8-week course than I’ve learned in my lifetime.
Rema’s ability to ‘peel back’ walls to uncover rooted feelings, all within a safe and understanding environment, is nothing shy of impressive. The group sessions and coaching provided the support I needed to be vulnerable while also offering me an outside perspective to gain personal clarity.
While I entered this program for career growth, I cannot put a monetary value on the impact it has had professionally AND personally. I highly recommend everyone do themselves a favor and take this course. You owe it to yourself to focus ON yourself. You’ll be forever grateful you did.”