Getting Unstuck in your Career

Shannah Hayley and I are speaking at the SMPS national conference this week. The session title is "I Want to be Rubber but I feel like Glue - How to get back your professional Bounce."  Our working title for the session was initially "Getting Unstuck." Both of us have been in the industry for a long time, and both of us have experienced breaking through the "stuck" times in our careers.

The talk actually came out of Shannah's and my conversations over the past three years.  We are both fans of each other's blogs and found we were both working through some of the same ideas and being inspired by the same writers.

As we worked through what we had learned about breaking through, we found the strategies fell under the headings of three topics...

1. Fight the fear.  We all have fear, and it is easier to fight it once it is identified.
2. Unblock your passion. Everyone has passion, but it often gets blocked by all the things we carry around with us. (This is physical and emotional.)
3. Break the rules. We don't have to be who everyone expects us to be.  We don't have to do things the way they've always been done. We are going to have to break someone's rules (even when that someone is ourself) to break out of a stuck place.

One of the big things is that we wanted to make this session have high application, so much of the talk focuses on the strategies we've learned are effective in doing those three things.

I really enjoy the ability of conferences to pull us out of our daily routine to give space to connect with others and to focus on the big ideas.  I always return energized and refreshed in my focus.

So, what about you? Do you want to be rubber but feel like glue? Here's the big secret....you are the only one who can unstick yourself.  Go get inspired and do it!