“Nothing new to report,” Carrie sighed as she joined the coaching call.
For months now, her boss had promised a promotion was in the works. Despite the commitment, no job description existed, and conversations to discuss the new role were few and far between.
“She warned me she had other top priorities,” Carrie offered. In the video screen, I could see her shrug her shoulders as if to say nothing could be done.
As a leadership coach and consultant, I see this “nothing can be done” attitude at least once a week. We hit an obstacle and assume it’s a wall that can’t be climbed. Carrie and others like her often wait for their leaders to move forward rather than asking, “What could I do now?”
I’m not picking on Carrie. I do it, too. When I catch myself feeling stuck, I remind myself of one thing:
Drive to the end of your headlights
Whether you’re stuck at a point in a project or in your career path, you don’t have to wait for the cavalry to save you. As I told Carrie, “It’s time to drive to the end of your headlights and then drive to the end of your headlights again.”
In other words, take one small action that moves you forward. Then take the next.
In Carrie’s case, her executive had mentioned two things that needed to be done before the promotion could be made. First, the executive wanted to talk with internal partners to scope work that would become Carrie’s responsibility. Second, a new job description was needed.
Carrie had been waiting for the vice president to take these actions. But as we spoke, she realized she didn’t need to wait. She first offered to schedule the partner interviews, draft the interview questions and sit in on the meetings to take notes. The vice president thought this was a great idea.
When the interviews were done, Carrie used the insights to sketch a job description and offered it to her VP. “I thought it might be easier for you to respond to something than start with a blank page,” she told her boss.
Novelist E. L. Doctorow reminds us, “You can see only as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
Carrie made a whole trip that way.
Getting yourself unstuck
You can keep waiting for someone else to solve your challenges. Or you can get unstuck. Here are five questions you can use to find your way to roll forward:
- I know what I can’t control — what can I control?
- Who can I ask for help, or what research could I conduct that would give me a range of possible next steps?
- What are the smallest possible actions I could take to inch this forward?
- What is keeping me from acting? How can I clear out that obstacle?
- If I can’t take the step officially, what can I do unofficially?
For more on how to get unstuck, you can learn to use this recipe.
(Names and details changed to protect the client’s identity.)
Opinions expressed by SmartBrief contributors are their own.
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