It's great to be ambitious! To have big "end" goals and a vision which makes you come alive and pulls you forward, energised and driven by anticipation and excitement.

But it's also easy to fall into a common trap of chasing less meaningful means goals, without a bigger picture vision and purpose. To end up chasing the goals you think you "should" be chasing. These can leave you feeling jaded, disappointed, disengaged and unhappy despite all the success and achievements.

Neglecting your own needs, drivers and wellbeing is too high a price to pay to achieve someone else's version of success.

Career success has many components. What that means to each of us is highly personal but we often feel pressured to achieve someone else's version of it, without giving enough focus to our own needs and desires.

Without tuning into your needs and that bigger picture perspective you sacrifice having harmony and alignment in your work. You set yourself up to being unnecessarily stressed and unfulfilled and to ending up longing for something more out of life.

What can you do?

You can take the time to re-assess your own situation more objectively.

To understand what true career success and fulfillment means for you, you need to go deeper than the common extrinsic measures such as "the right" role, title and salary.

Reconnect with your own needs and values. And become more aware of your conditioning and limiting beliefs so you can overcome them and create your own career success model.

Work Alignment, Stress and Boredom

Your work alignment is affecting your career health and success. There is the stress impact. And there is also the boredom and disengagement impact. You can better-manage your career health and success by achieving better work alignment.

There's the stress and anxiety that comes from too much variety and challenge. But the impact of too little variety and challenge leads to boredom and affects your performance. The same applies to certainty and security. With too much of it you can get bored and disengaged. Too little certainty and security and you have stress and anxiety.

You need to find your peak performance zone and the environment that will enable you to function at your best.

Challenge your Comfort Zone

The trick is to find just the right balance to function at your peak and to enable you to grow out of your comfort zone and into your stretch potential.

There are many other ways, both positive and negative, that your work or environment can impact your outlook, engagement, happiness and confidence. As well as your performance, energy and drive.

Your career success blockages could be obvious or subtle and harder to pinpoint.

Clarity and Direction

What you need more of is clarity and direction. To identify what is and isn't working, to get clear on what you really want and need to be at your best and to create a plan to get you to your most important end goals.

Chasing meaningless means goals without clarity and direction can leave you jaded, uncertain and anxious about your future. Or leave you feeling stuck and finding it hard to make a career decision.

Make getting clear and confident about where you want to be heading a priority if you want a version of career success which allows you to thrive.

Self-confidence

You can be successful at what you do because you're very experienced and skilled at it. You do the job well, but is it meaningful and satisfying? Or does it leave you yearning for more? Does it leave you feeling unseen and unrecognised for your potential?

Not having the opportunity to operate at your peak can erode self-confidence and lead you to doubt your capabilities for something more.

Knowing there's more to you, but not having the opportunity to demonstrate it can leave you feeling unfulfilled and wondering whether there's more to life.

Are you feeling like an impostor, trying to be someone else, afraid to reveal your true values and personality at work? This is not good for your career health and will not enable you to experience true career success. Because you're selling yourself short.

If that's you, do something about it!

Get Unstuck

It may not be so obvious what you need to tackle first to get that traction. To get clear and unstuck so you can take that leap to create a more thriving career.

You need to work out how you can reignite your inner fire so you can elevate your career and your wellbeing.

But it's hard to read the label from inside the jar!

It's not easy to have an objective, bigger picture perspective when you're so close to the situation.

That's why I created The Career Health Diagnostic Model. So you can consider and assess the impact of the various elements affecting your career health and success more objectively.

Do Your Own Career Health Assessment

Find out your career health status and whether you're flailing or thriving, or somewhere in between.

Take my Free Career Health Diagnostic to find out how you score overall and on the 5 key areas of your career health. This easy to use online quiz will help you to identify what is and isn't working.

Use it to get that bigger picture perspective on your career, how you're feeling about it and why. Shine the light on your career situation so you can take action to create better career health and a happier you!

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