How to Get Unstuck at Work and in Your Career

Are you a professional feeling stuck in the middle of everything?

I have been there and I know how it feels to be stuck in the middle. When I reflect back on my career and my journey as a professional, I can remember moments I wanted to give up because I felt overwhelmed and underappreciated. I am thankful for all the great coaches and mentors who helped me in these dark moments and gave me a perspective that changed my life. I want to do the same for you.

I have come to realize that the life of every professional follows the path similar to that proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper titled, “A Theory of Human Motivation.” In his paper, Maslow argues that healthy human beings have five categories of needs that can be arranged in a hierarchy. From the bottom of the hierarchy upwards, these needs are: physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization.

According to Maslow, these five core needs form the basis for human behavioural motivation, and that needs lower down in the hierarchy must be satisfied before individuals can attend to the needs higher up.

This may not be your experience and it may be an overstatement, but as I reflect on my career, I believe there is some truth to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs that can be applied to your career as well. For me when I embarked on my career journey as a young professional, it didn’t take much time to get my basic physiological and safety needs met. I had a job, a roof over my head, and I could pay my bills comfortably. The part where I got stuck was in the middle, the love and belonging needs. I am not talking about romantic love in this context. Although that’s part of it for most professionals I talk to, that’s not the sense in which I am using this word.

I am talking about finding work that you truly love and a place you feel you belong. Like most professionals, I got stuck in jobs that I didn’t love doing work that didn’t fulfill me. I think that’s why some professionals end up using romantic love to replace a legitimate need for love of work and a place to call home. I don’t have data on this yet besides the anecdotal evidence that I have gathered through conversations with clients and colleagues. I am not judging you here. I have been there. I have done it. I know how you feel. I was a middle manager and I was unhappy.

In their Harvard Business Review article titled, Why Middle Managers Are So Unhappy, Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman, discovered that middle managers are the unhappiest workers. In their study of these workers, Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman found out that the characteristics of these employees could best be described as those “stuck in the middle of everything.”

There are many reasons Zenger and Folkman pointed out as the cause of this dissatisfaction, for example, not feeling valued or appreciated, being over-worked, believing their organization is inefficient or ineffective, lack of meaning and purpose, and poor leadership.

This may not be applicable to you at this moment, but I believe as a professional you are not immune to this “getting stuck in the middle” phenomenon. It requires intense personal work to escape this trap. In my case, I had become very unhappy with my life. I was not only stuck as a middle manager, but I also felt stuck in the middle of everything. I think the word I am looking for is chaos. There was chaos in my life. I know if you have a job right now, you have to be grateful, but it doesn’t mean you are happy.

And if you are a Christian like me, things can get a little interesting because the Bible in Colossians 3:23-24 says, “Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.” That’s correct, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have a voice and can’t use it wisely. You deserve to do work that makes you happy and I believe God wants you to be happy. It all depends on how you go about it.

I want to help you not get stuck as a middle manager in your own career and life. I would argue that most professionals are already dealing with being stuck in the middle with jobs or work they don’t love, or with no work at all. This trend started a while ago. According to the 2018 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends, young people believed at the time that their lives will be worse than their parents. And according to a 2016 study by Statistics Canada, secure full-time jobs were harder to come by for young Canadians. It’s now 2025 and things have gotten worse.

This trend was also discovered by RBC in their study which showed that there was a rise in temporary jobs in the Canadian labour market which meant as a professional you were likely going to change jobs more often than previous generations, at least early in your working life. In their 2018 The Coming Skills Revolution report titled, Humans Wanted: How Canadian youth can thrive in the age of disruption, RBC discovered that “more than 25% of Canadian jobs will be heavily disrupted by technology in the coming decade.” It’s been seven years since this report came out and AI has already proven this to be true.

In the same study I referenced above, RBC discovered what they called a quiet crisis “of recent graduates who are overqualified for the jobs they’re in, of unemployed youth who weren’t trained for the jobs that are out there, and young Canadians everywhere who feel they aren’t ready for the future of work.”

I'm sure you don't need another headline to remind you of this. You probably are dealing with this issue as of this moment. If you're in your 20s or 30s, chances are you're already used to this so-called "job churn" - moving from one unstable job to the next. This is not only true for young Canadian professionals, but for young professionals in most mature markets. The shift to more precarious work is the future that a lot of professionals need to get used to. And AI has just exacerbated this trend.

I am writing this to let you know that there are no guarantees in life and there is risk in every move you make. Even if you decide to escape the 9-to-5 grind and become an entrepreneur and start your own small business, there are no guarantees either. According to the U.S. Small Business Administration, about 20% of small businesses fail in their first year, and 50% of small businesses fail in their fifth year. If you're a small business owner, chances are you're already used to this so-called "growth plateau", or worse, the sales slump.

If you are feeling stuck in the middle of everything, I believe this moment is your opportunity to get unstuck. It’s an opportunity for new levels of effectiveness, tactfulness, strength, and competitiveness. The biggest advantage you have right now is your opportunity to perceive. Getting stuck is only temporary if you have the ability to perceive opportunities.

First of all, if you are a professional and your career has hit a growth plateau and you are feeling stuck, I want you to stop beating yourself up. None of what's happening right now is really your fault. This is not all about you and you can't allow it to crush your soul.

Is part of it about you? Yes, no doubt.

In my case, I didn’t value myself enough and I ended up staying in places I know I should have left sooner. I had to realize quickly that I am not guaranteed anything and I have to fight for it. I am not saying it was all my fault. There are many reasons that cause careers to plateau, for example, gender, race, and culture, etc. In her 2020 article titled, The docility myth flattening Asian women’s careers, Christine Ro points out that “enduring stereotypes around race, culture and gender shape the careers of Asian women, causing many to plateau.”

The article by Christine Ro is corroborated by findings from a 2018 research study published in the Asian American Journal of Psychology titled, From Exotic to Invisible: Asian American Women’s Experiences of Discrimination by Shruti Mukkamala and Karen Suyemoto which discovered that “contrary to popular belief, Asian American women face discrimination in their lives, both professionally and personally.” Shruti Mukkamala and Karen Suyemoto identified 15 types of discrimination including being perceived as “not a leader” or seen as “incapable of being or becoming a leader” which leads to careers of these women plateauing.

I am not an Asian woman, but I understand how race, gender and culture can shape your career and it’s important that we think and talk about these things as we work to grow our careers.

If you are feeling stuck, betrayed, or discriminated against, I want you to use this time to be smart and use this realization to spark a major career transformation. I don’t want you to whip yourself into a hot mess. There is no need to inflict further damage to your life and career.

I know it hurts. Trust me when I say I feel your pain. But you can use this pain to start speaking your truth to those around you. Your truth comes when you start asking the right questions.

Who are you?

What is your calling?

What makes you happy?

Where are you going with your life?

How do you plan to get there?

It’s okay to have an opinion and to speak your truth to those around you – clients, colleagues, or your manager. As Jesus said, “And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” It’s how you speak your truth. Speak it with love. As the book of Ephesians 4:15 makes it clear, “But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ.”

If you can’t speak your truth, you will never be free. Your truth is the gateway to getting unstuck.

If you are ready for more in your life and want help building the joyful, passionate, and profitable business you deserve, book a free consultation call with me. I’ll help you get clear on who you really are as an entrepreneur, be more confident about your unique brand voice, and empower you to expand the quality of your presence and influence in the global marketplace. You’ll know how it feels to build your business differently and pursue the right goals. You’ll stop wasting your time on people who don’t value you or people you can’t make a difference to.