A slow career path is not the end of the world. You can use it to plan strategies for the future, or you can figure out why it has stalled, or you can accept it and enjoy it.

To plan ahead while you are just plodding along, decide for sure where you really want to be five years from now. Then decide what courses, seminars, self-help books, mentoring, or other tools you need, so that you can achieve that goal. In a career, five years is not a long time, if you fill it with hope for the future.

To figure out why you have stalled on your career path, begin to look around you. Which employees are on a fast track? Look back, and see if you can find out which techniques they used to get there. Find out who to talk to, someone to guide you. It's not wrong to seek guidance from someone who can mentor you.

Finally, you might want to just accept that you are where you really are meant to be. A friend of mine actively went after a supervisory position, then regretted it a year later when she had no time for the two children she was raising alone, was on-call constantly via her cell phone, and had to put in more hours than ever before.

Learn more about this author, Evelyn Mayfield.
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