Have you outgrown your role?
Sometimes dissatisfaction at work is easy to explain. You don't enjoy the job, the culture isn't right or you know quite clearly that you want to leave. At other times, it is much harder to put your finger on what has changed.
You may still like the organisation and get on well with the people around you. You are probably good at what you do and, from the outside at least, everything appears to be going reasonably well. Yet something doesn't feel quite as satisfying as it once did.
I come across this quite often when talking to people about their careers. They aren't necessarily unhappy, but neither are they particularly energised by what they are doing. Work has become familiar, perhaps a little too familiar, and they begin wondering whether they need a change.
The obvious conclusion is often that it is time to find another job.
Sometimes it is. But before updating your CV, it can be worth understanding what you are actually missing.
One useful place to start is to think about how much of your capability your current role is asking you to use. As we become more experienced, things that once stretched us can become routine. We know how to handle the difficult client, run the meeting or solve the problem because we have done it many times before. That competence is valuable, but it can also mean that a role which once offered plenty of challenge gradually stops providing enough of it.
There can be a slightly uncomfortable aspect to this. Being very good at something can make it harder to move away from it. Other people value your expertise, so they continue giving you more of the work you already know how to do. Before long, your reputation can begin to keep you in a role you have started to outgrow.
I think this is why career conversations are sometimes more useful when they begin with curiosity rather than a decision.
Instead of immediately asking, "Should I stay or should I leave?", try asking yourself what you would like more of in your working life now.
Perhaps you miss learning. You may want greater influence or more autonomy. Maybe you would simply like to spend more of your week doing the parts of your job that still interest you and rather less on the things that have become routine. Once you understand what is missing, the options tend to become clearer.
A new job is one possibility, but it isn't the only one. There may be conversations you could have about changing the shape of your existing role, taking responsibility for something different or becoming involved in work that makes better use of strengths which have been sitting untapped in the background.
It can also be useful to think back to the last time you felt genuinely engaged by your work. What were you doing? What made it interesting? Was it the subject itself, the people involved or the fact that you were learning something new?
Those answers often tell us more than a list of possible job titles.
Questions to Consider
Which parts of your role still give you energy, and which have become largely routine?
What abilities or experience are you using less than you would like?
When did you last feel genuinely stretched by your work?
If your current role could change, what would you want to be different?
Try This
Rather than asking yourself whether you need a new job, spend a little time this week identifying what you want more of from the next stage of your career. Write it down without worrying yet about how you might achieve it.
You may discover that the question isn't simply whether you have outgrown your role, but what you are ready to grow into next.
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