Why You Feel Stuck in Your Career—And how to move forward

It was a dizzying experience to be promoted every 18-24 months. To be part of the team that took CBS from last place to first. To be the head of a department that developed television pilots that were the highest testing in network history. To be a champion for emerging voices and see how my advocacy positively impacted people’s lives. 

Then I got fired.

For someone who took great pride in being competent and capable, I didn’t know the first thing about how to handle such a significant career setback. My MBA certainly didn’t have a concentration in “What the f*ck just happened?”

I couldn’t sleep. And then all I did was sleep. I couldn’t eat. And then all I did was eat crappy food. I couldn't focus. I couldn’t put thoughts together. My heart was saturated with shame, humiliation, and confusion. I was Alice in a wonderland, dropped into a world that made no sense. 

Trying to figure out what came next was like flooring the gas in a semi truck with a block wedged under the wheel. No matter how hard I pushed the gas pedal, the vehicle wasn’t moving. Despite significant investments in therapy, coaching, workshops, books, and journeys with shamans. 

And that's the part I've spent years thinking about, studying and eventually working through with hundreds of clients.

If you've lost a job, been laid off, watched a career dream fall apart, burned out in work you used to love, or simply reached a point where you don't know what you want anymore, you may think you need a better career strategy.

And you might. I love a plan more than anyone. I’m the goddess of planning. 

But something else may be happening too.

You may be grieving.

What Do You Really Lose When You Lose a Job?

When we talk about job loss, we tend to focus on the obvious things. Like the paycheck, the benefits, and the title. Those losses are real. Sometimes terrifyingly real.

But there’s another part of the story you may be missing. 

In research I've conducted with people who’ve experienced significant professional change, they talked about losing identity, community, confidence, trust, direction, status and belonging.

One person told me: "I didn't know what to dream for anymore."

Grief comes from the loss of what we were attached to — and we form attachments not only to people, but to places, objects, beliefs, even versions of ourselves. When one of those attachments is disrupted, knowing intellectually that "it's just a job" doesn't make the loss disappear.

How Do You Move Forward When You Feel Stuck in Your Career?

Eventually, I realized I needed a way to work with the grief and figure out what came next. But I knew nothing about how to mourn a loss that wasn’t about the loss of life. Can you have a funeral for a lost job? Can I plant a tree for the project that no one responded to? 

Turns out, yes we can. And that's what became my RISE Framework.

RISE has four tasks: 

R — Recognize the Loss

I — Investigate the Meaning

S — Signal the Shift

E — Embark on What's Next

You’ve already met the first two.

When I asked you to look beyond the paycheck and title and consider whether you also lost confidence, community, identity, belonging or a dream, you were Recognizing the Loss.

When I invited you to look at the data to separate what happened from what you decided it meant about you — I got fired from I’m a failure — you were Investigating the Meaning.

The third task is Signal the Shift.

This is the part that can feel a little strange when we’re talking about work because our culture doesn't give us many rituals for professional endings. We have retirement parties. Maybe a goodbye lunch if everyone likes you.

But what do you do when a business you spent ten years building fails? When the project you loved doesn't get made? When you're laid off from a company that was a huge part of your identity? When you realize the career you worked your whole life to build is over?

Those endings deserve to be marked too.

I encourage career grievers to create a bespoke ritual — something personal that acknowledges what has ended and what it meant to you. It signals that a shift is occurring, taking the loss out of the shadows and into the light. 

It had never occurred to me that I could create a rite of passage for something work related. I thought rituals were specific to religion or wacky people in robes. But rituals are a powerful set of intentional actions that give stability, emotional grounding, and stress relief during times of uncertainty and grief. Getting out of our heads and creating a physical manifestation of what was lost along with an acknowledgement of who we are becoming is the most powerful tool I’ve experienced when navigating career grief. 

Your ritual might involve a symbol of what you're grieving — a business card, a script, a company ID, a photograph, a rejection letter, something you created. You might write a eulogy, bury a name tag, burn a headshot, transform a business suit or ask someone you trust to witness you saying goodbye.

I've worked with people who’ve created rituals that were private and quiet and others that involved friends and family. There isn't a correct ritual because there isn't a correct way to grieve.

The point is to create a moment that says: This happened. This mattered. And something has changed.

I call it making a good goodbye. You get to take ownership of how you respond to what happened and how it shapes who you are becoming.