10 Biggest Career Mistakes That Are Slowing Down Your Progress

These are the biggest career mistakes that differentiate professionals who dread going to work every day and feel stuck in their job from those who are fulfilled and successful in their chosen carer path.

You really don’t want to make these. And if you are already I’ve shared ways for you to fix them asap.

Here they are …

10 Biggest Career Mistakes

#1 Failing to learn new skills

No job is static.

Assuming yours is, makes you easily dispensable in the future.

At work, we often find ourselves in situations we haven’t experienced before. If the new situation resembles or calls upon things you have learned previously, you can adapt the learning from your past experience to the new situation. This is referred to as learning transfer and the skills as transferable skills.

According to a survey by the Learning and Work Institute, staff who engage in regular learning activities are better able to adapt to changes in their workplace and as such are regarded as more flexible, motivated, and likely to bring continuous improvement to their work.

And this is just one of many benefits of investing in learning and self-development activities.

So if you want to bulletproof your career and develop skills that are highly sought after by senior management, make it a priority to engage in learning activities regularly, whether on or off the job.

#2 Not aligning your goals with the company’s and department’s objectives

You don’t work in a bubble.

The opportunities for your professional development are closely linked to the company you work for and its short and long-term objectives (also called KPIs or OKRs).

Understand what these are by attending your company and department townhalls, speaking with your manager, your senior manager.

Demonstrate that the work you do is having a direct positive impact on those. This puts you in a great position to push for a promotion, negotiate a salary increase, and generally feel like you’re making a difference.

#3 Not sharing career goals with your manager

Having the support of your manager is vital for success. So make sure they are aware of your aspirations.

If they don’t know you want to use your analytical skills more, you may not be their first choice when a suitable project comes up.

If they don’t know you’re aspiring to manage people, they won’t give you management responsibilities, whether formal or informal.

If they don’t know you have started to resent certain aspects of your job, they won’t make it a priority to reshuffle tasks.

Engage in development conversations with them. Update your personal development plan. Convince them how you developing certain skills or knowledge will benefit the whole department including them as individuals. Ensure both you and they commit to the agreed actions.

But you continue to be the captain of your career journey. It’s with you to follow up on a regular basis (quarterly as a minimum).

#4 Not setting boundaries

Throughout your career, you need to have crystal clarity on your non-negotiables. These are the things that are of huge importance to you as an individual. When your job is aligned with them, you are happy, successful, and fulfilled with your career. When it’s not, you’re stressed and anxious.

These non-negotiables dictate the boundaries you set at work and communicate with others and are critical for your mental health and wellbeing.

For me, my coaching business and career blog contribute to my fulfillment and satisfaction as much as my full-time job. I don’t deprioritize them when my full-time job gets busy.

Instead, I deprioritize certain parts of my full-time job (and agree on those with my manager) instead of doing it at the expense of my own business.

#5 Obsessing with developing your weaknesses

It’s one of the most common career advice you would hear – identify and develop your weaknesses.

It’s so prevalent that it forms the basis of some people’s self-development agenda.

Here’s why this advice is BS and would be one of the biggest career mistakes you make. And what to focus on instead.

Devoting your time and energy to developing your weaknesses is like pouring water into a bucket with holes. It will never be completely full because most of the time these are things you’re not naturally good at. And let’s be honest, no one is good at everything.

And you needn’t be.

Instead, neutralize your weaknesses.

Yes, unchecked they can drag you down. Ignoring them would look like an ostrich sticking its head in the sand. We can still see its butt…

Develop them just enough so that they’re not creating a drag on your progress. And focus your energy on leveraging your strengths.

P.s. If you’ve never done a strengths assessment, try the free personality survey from Via Character. You can discover your strengths in 10 minutes as well as get actionable tips to apply them to your job.

#6 Self-doubt

In my experience as an HR and career coach, self-doubt and its sister imposter syndrome are the most prevalent self-sabotaging behaviors that women have.

I’ve seen women not apply for jobs, delay promotion conversations, put up with BS, do work they don’t enjoy. All because they doubt themselves, their abilities, and the value they bring.

Address this career mistake and you will be on track for success.

Self-confidence is a superpower. Once you start to believe in yourself, the magic starts happening.

#7 Letting someone else make career decisions for you

One of the biggest career mistakes I see consistently being made by professionals is to make career choices based on someone else’s path, on someone else’s idea of what a successful career looks like.

Yes, speaking to others about their experience is a great way to expand your network and position yourself better for future opportunities.

But you need to be crystal clear on YOUR own VIP (Values, Interests, and Power Strengths) to make the best career choices for YOU.

It took me a couple of months to gain crystal clarity on my VIP.

But I was then able to take strategic and carefully-planned actions to pivot and get onto the path that is right for ME and makes me both successful and fulfilled.

Remember this: you are in the driver’s seat of your career. You make the choices. You decide where to turn left, where to slow down, where to make a U-turn to align your career with your VIP.

#8 Lacking clarity about what’s important to you before making job change decisions

Imagine moving house without a clear idea of how big, what area, what features you want (fireplace, double ceiling, open-plan, etc), what your budget is, what the future developments in the area would look like, whether it’s short term or long-term, will you be raising a family there etc.

You decide on those aspects in advance, don’t you?

So why approach your career differently?

Without knowing your non-negotiables, what type of work utilizes your strengths best, where you can make the biggest difference, what interests you but you don’t have the skills (yet), what environment you want to be in, you are likely to make career decisions that lead you to an unfulfilling and stagnated career journey.

Do you see how this would be one of the biggest career mistakes one can make?

#9 Not having a personal development plan

Let your career go with the flow as most other people do and you will find yourself drifting towards waterfalls and rapids – loss in motivation, low career satisfaction, lower income than what you can make, work thrown at you.

Plan your career journey by learning how to write a good personal development plan and you’ll be on track for success.

Your career success is not a result of the actions someone else takes, the circumstances, or luck. Instead, it is the result of thoughtful decisions, careful planning, and persistent actions.

#10 Allowing yourself to be unhappy at work

You spend a third of your life at work. If you allow yourself to be unhappy and stressed at work, it will inevitably have a spillover effect on your life in general.

We all have days when work gets the best of us. We finish the day exhausted and wondering if anyone even cared about our job.

But don’t let the days turn into weeks, months, even years of miserable work life.

Feeling stuck, demotivated, and without a purpose for a prolonged period of time is not normal. You shouldn’t make it the norm for yourself.

If this is how you feel, keep on reading …

Fixing Your Biggest Career Mistakes

Message me to schedule a free 30-minute Career Roadblocks Self-check call with me to get a sense of what’s REALLY stopping you from achieving your big career goal. No strings attached!