Ep. 31: Why High Achievers Feel Stuck in Their Careers
Ever felt stuck even though, on paper, everything looks fine? In this solo episode, I break down the real reasons high achievers feel trapped in their careers and what actually helps you move forward.
In this episode of The Pivot Point, I’m unpacking something I see constantly with high-achieving, capable people: feeling deeply stuck while also telling yourself you should be grateful. If you’ve ever thought, “Nothing’s technically wrong, so why do I feel like this?” this episode is for you.
I walk through the three most common reasons I see high achievers feeling stuck in their careers and none of them mean you’re lazy, ungrateful, or failing at life. They point to clarity gaps, nervous system safety, and identity patterns that quietly keep you frozen even when you want more.
We talk about how outsourcing safety to a job limits courage, why tying your identity to a title shrinks your possibilities, and how fear, obligation, and guilt often masquerade as practicality. I also share personal examples from my own career pivots and what actually helped me loosen those grips.
This episode is an invitation to get curious instead of critical. You don’t need to burn everything down tomorrow. You do need to understand what’s really keeping you stuck so you can choose your next step from confidence instead of fear.
What You’ll Hear
✔️ Why high achievers feel stuck even when things look “successful”
✔️ How outsourcing safety to your job blocks career growth
✔️ The hidden cost of tying your identity to a job title
✔️ The FOG cycle: fear, obligation, and guilt explained
✔️ How fear disguises itself as logic and responsibility
✔️ What to focus on instead when considering a career pivot
“Feeling stuck doesn’t mean you’re broken. It usually means something inside you is asking for clarity.”
If this episode resonated, share it with someone who keeps saying they’re fine but feels anything but.
Download the Heart-Aligned Career Transition Starter at https://www.leadintact.com/freebies/heart-aligned-career, and if you’re ready to talk through your next move, book a free 20-minute call at https://leadintactwithlaura.as.me/free-consultation. You don’t have to figure this out alone.
Proceed as if success is inevitable, because once you believe that’s true, it becomes true.
-
You are listening to the pivot point where we unpack the defining moments that shift careers and lives. I'm your host, Laura Dionisio, a founder of Lead Intact, and my mission is to spotlight the raw real stories behind career pivots, the fears, the hopes. The messy middles and the bold decisions that follow if you're feeling stuck or quietly wondering what's next?
I hope these stories help you see yourself a little more clearly and inspire you to start moving toward your own dream life. Let's begin.
Have you ever felt stuck, even though technically nothing is wrong and you keep telling yourself, well, I should be happy, right? Today, I'm gonna break down three reasons. High achievers feel stuck in their careers And by the way, none of the reasons mean that you're lazy, that you're ungrateful or that you just generally suck in life. That last one, I know it sounds a little harsh, but just in case you kind of have a mean inner critic voice like mine used to be. That's what I used to tell myself.
Okay.
Why this topic is so important is because a lot more people feel stuck than you think. Even the ones that you think, wow, they're kicking ass. Look at that. They just got a promotion, or they just got this amazing transfer or this opportunity. You don't know what's happening in their inner lives.
In fact. I was one of the people where a lot of my friends would use the phrase that used to trigger me so much, but, oh, you're so lucky. You're so lucky that you got this new opportunity. You're so lucky that this and that. And yes, it's true. Okay. I am not denying that. There have been a lot of things that luck has brought me, and in those moments I really kind of felt like, wow, I am an ungrateful asshole for.
Not feeling gratitude for the opportunities that have come my way. Like, how dare I feel this way when I should be grateful when I've worked so hard to be where I am where so many people would kill to have the situation that I'm in. Does this sound like you? What I have found, and again, we're gonna talk about three reasons you may feel stuck.
What I have found overall is that the feeling of being stuck comes from a lack of clarity, both in the direction you wanna head and also what are the things that are holding you back. So with that, let's get into it.
So three reasons you may feel stuck. One is that you have outsourced your sense of safety and stability to your job.
What do I mean by that? What I mean is that your sense of stability and groundedness rather than something from within. You see it as the job is the stability. Me doing this thing I've been doing for so long, that is my sense of safety that paycheck that's coming every two weeks or every month.
Is my sense of safety and stability, and I get it. That's how I used to feel as well. Now, why is this such a detriment to your career growth? If your sense of safety is outside of you, meaning your job, that contract, or even if it's not a career job, even if it's your role and job. Even if it's in, in your role in life, right?
Like I've had a lot of clients who have been stay at home moms and they're looking to get back into it, but their sense of safety and stability is what they've known for years, which is being a stay at home mom, raising their kids. Then if your sense of safety and stability is outside of you, you're not gonna find the courage to leave that sense of safety and stability.
Your nervous system's gonna be like, hell the fuck no. Instead, what I encourage you to do is find what I call an anchor point within, find that sense of safety and stability within, so what this can look like, okay. I know a lot of people, myself included, that would be like, what do you mean, like a steady paycheck?
Like literally I have to pay bills. Did that company just decide to pay you money? Outta nowhere did they just graciously decide, oh, you, Laura Dionisio, you know, I, I picked your name out of, out of a bucket, and so I'm gonna give you this money. No they didn't. They're paying me because of my skills, my experience, the things that I bring to the table.
So let's reframe it to my feeling of safety and stability actually doesn't come from the paycheck. The paycheck as a result of me bringing my skills, my experience, my expertise to the table. Now, if I have my sense of safety and stability in myself, my skills, what I bring to the table, my experience, my perspective, then that means that I am free to search other ways in which I can be compensated for what I bring to the table.
Does that make sense? So it's like it, I'm not suggesting at all that, oh, you don't. You don't need money to live. No, that's not true of the society. Yes, you need the money to pay the bills, to eat, to do the fun things. The only thing I'm suggesting is consider what the source of the money is. Consider what the real source of stability and safety is.
It's not the job, it's you because you were the one bringing the skills and bringing the things that you bring to that particular job. So that's reason number one, that you may feel stuck is because you were outsourcing your sense of safety and stability to something. Rather than looking within for that feeling of safety and stability.
The second reason you may feel stuck, your identity is really wrapped up in your career, specifically your job title. Okay. This was me before I made my first pivot. You know, like I had made a huge name, so like. Early on in my career, I started off as a systems engineer working in GPS, really cool stuff. I quickly became a functional team lead.
I, I quickly got recognized, that kind of thing. It was, again, speaking even of the first one, right? My sense of safety and stability and my identity was so tied up in being this specific person in the field of GPS. So how is that a detriment to me exploring and expanding my career?
Well, if my identity is specifically tied to that job title of systems engineer and GPS, then. That's really severely limiting the pool of opportunity that I have. That means that I wouldn't have the confidence to look for jobs outside of that.
Okay. Instead, rather than having your identity tied to your job title or honestly even the specific career, like, let's expand that a bit. What if I just saw myself as a systems engineer? You know, then I would've missed the opportunity for me to create a process for this, midsize company that they still use to this day.
You know what I mean? Like, when you tie your identity to either your job title or your career field, you are limiting the opportunities that you have and even like denying the passions and desires that you may wanna explore. Instead, similar to what I talked about earlier about tying sense of safety and stability, within, have your identity tied to you.
Because career job title, that's still external to you. Think about what makes me, me in a professional standpoint. What are some of the skills that I bring to the table? What's my experience? What are my certifications? Because here's the thing, even if there is another type of job that you're looking into that is not anywhere near on paper, at least what you used to do.
There is a 99.9% chance that you have some transferable skills. Now, it's not always true. So like, as an example, I went from systems engineering to becoming like a business analyst and like scrum master and all that. There were a lot of overlaps, but there were certain things that I couldn't carry with me and that I had to also learn to become good at that particular job.
So I'm not saying that. No matter what you do, you can just transfer all the skills and you're, you're gonna be good to go. No, like you may have to get another certification, you may have to learn some things. However, what I am encouraging you to do is that rather than having your identity be like, in my case, I'm an engineer, or maybe I'm an author, or I'm a teacher, or I'm a scientist, or I'm a program manager, whatever it is, detach your identity from.
Your job title and career. That way, it'll open you up to more opportunities, more possibilities, and you get to have more fun and look through the lens of what you actually want, where you actually wanna go in your career, not just where you think you can go based on the job titles you've had in the past.
The third reason you may feel stuck, there's this acronym that I learned, it was pertaining to romantic relationships, but it's so good that it stuck to mind. And the acronym is fog. FOG. You may feel stuck in your current situation with your career or anywhere in your life or out of fear, obligation, or guilt.
So we kind of talked about the fear piece already, right? Like if your sense of safety, the first two things, right? If your sense of safety and stability is external to you, then you may stay, you may be stuck at your job because you have a fear of what happens when you leave. What if I can't find something new?
What if I end up jobless? What if I end up without a home living in the streets? So that means that you're staying out of fear. The other part of this acronym is o obligation. You may be stuck because you have a feeling of obligation, like maybe you got this job because your mentor got the interview for you, and you feel obligated to stay because you feel like it might be disrespectful or insulting to the person who got you to this job.
Now, if you got this job like two days ago, and then the third day, you're thinking of switching jobs, okay? I would highly recommend against that. Okay. 'cause that is a little bit, that's not gonna reflect all that well right on you and the person who brought you in. However, if you've been at your job for two or more years and the only reason you're staying stuck is out of a feeling of obligation, let that go.
Okay. The third part of the acronym is g. And that's guilt. You may be feeling stuck at your job out of a sense of guilt. This has happened to me when I became a team lead and I ended up taking up a lot more projects and I had a feeling of guilt because I cared so much about my teammates.
I didn't wanna let them down. I was thinking about like, well, if I leave, like who's gonna take my place? Et cetera. Here's the thing, incorporation like, let's just be so honest right now. No matter how loyal you've been, how great of a performer you've been, how much money you saved, ti time you saved for the company, you are replaceable.
Okay? So let's go ahead and let that guilt go. And here's the thing about the FOG acronym. So fear, obligation or guilt. What I have found both in myself, by the way, and in my clients and my friends, is that if you are feeling. Fear, obligation or guilt. It's really kind of, and again, this may sound harsh, but I am just here to reflect truth to you and know that this is something I've told myself as well.
It's really fear dressed up as practicality, meaning whether, well, the F part of fog is fear, whether you're feeling a sense of obligation or guilt. Really it's, it's masking this sense of fear of doing something new, fear of leaving something behind. And so that could be why you're feeling stuck. Now, what do you do then if you are feeling fear, obligation, or guilt?
I'm not suggesting that you tomorrow. Just say, okay, I'm no longer gonna feel the things that's not how humans work. Rather, I invite you to turn toward, get curious, what is this fear about? What is it that I'm really afraid of? Am I afraid that I'm not gonna get like another job that's, that pays the same or better?
And if so, what are all the actual possibilities? Because there is a possibility that you won't find another job. What are the other possibilities? There's a possibility that you will find a job that's the same pay. There's a possibility you'll get a job that's even more pay. There's a possibility that you get a job that like, maybe it's the same pay, but it's totally more aligned with what you want.
So really, when it comes to fear, it's really important to acknowledge and allow that. Emotion to be there. It's valid right? Now, when it becomes detrimental is when you take that feeling of fear again, which is valid, and then you use it to make your decisions, right? That's not what makes a successful pivot, right?
And if you're feeling stuck, then that could mean that you've been allowing fear to be. In the driver's seat rather than your confidence or your desire. Okay? And then if you're feeling a sense of obligation and even like a feeling of guilt, I would really encourage you and invite you to ask yourself, okay, what is the emotion underneath this?
I'm feeling obligated because of this. How do I feel about that? Well, actually, I feel kind of guilty 'cause like I would be taken advantage of this person who referred me to this job. Okay? What do you feel underneath that? I'm also kind of feeling a little bit of shame really, because it's like, well, I, why aren't I feeling grateful?
Okay, like, what's underneath that? And you just keep going until you find like the root and emotion and then just like in the feeling of fear and I'm, I'm gonna guess that it probably is fear underneath all that. Then again, like with such grace and compassion to yourself, it's like, imagine talking to a child like, yes, I know this is scary.
And you have these scenarios in your mind playing out of what could go wrong and here are things, other things that could go right, like just inviting you to use your imagination in a positive way. And again, kind of going back to what I said earlier. Really important to identify some facts about yourself, right?
Because you are not just this person in this particular job or role, you know, like it, it is really helpful to do an honest and genuine self-assessment. Like these are my my certifications. These are the degrees that I have. These are the skillset, and allow that. To lead the inner discussion in your mind about what my next move should be.
So rather than like, I feel a sense of obligation, I can't leave, allow the conversation to be like, what's actually possible here? What do I actually want? And if I know what I want, how could I get there? Not like, what are the many ways I could fail, or what are the many ways I could disappoint someone?
So I hope this is helpful. There are many more reasons that you may feel stuck, but these are just the three that I've seen the most in working with clients and even looking back in my own experience. And I have to say like I am a very. Reflective person. And even with all that, I have found that it's really hard to see yourself sometimes, like even as a coach, I have done this work for, I don't know, like four years at this point or Wow, five years at this point.
And still, I also have my own coach so that they can reflect back to me what are some of the things that I'm unable to see.
So if you are feeling like, okay, I am ready to do the next level of my career, whatever that looks like for you, book a free 20 minute call with me. I would be so happy to talk to you, to talk through. Whatever your actual desires are for your career, where you're at, what you would like to do, because you don't have to do this journey alone.
And really, I love that you're listening to this podcast. I hope this podcast episode along with other seven super useful and helpful for you and that they resonate.
And as always, I'm gonna end with my favorite saying, which I have my mug this time around. So if you're watching this, you can see it. Remember to proceed as if success is inevitable, because once you believe that's true, it becomes true. I'll catch you next time.
All right, friend. That's it for today's drop. If this episode hits something deep, don't just sit with it, act on it. Share this with a friend who needs to hear it, and then head to www.leadinta.com to grab your free heart aligned career transition starter, or book a free 20 minute call with me. I'm here when you're ready to stop feeling stuck and start moving toward what you really want.
Catch you next time.