How to Get Out of a Professional Rut

By: Susanne Birgersdotter

 

No matter how successful you are, sometimes you just fall in a professional rut that seems impossible to get out.

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Kredit : Stella Pictures

Are you continuously striving for perfection, but falling short of the mark?

 

Do you focus on a goal, but the bar for achievement seems to keep changing?

 

Do you feel like you keep falling further and further behind while others are surging ahead?

 

Are you irritable with others because no matter what you do, you’re simply not progressing?

 

If any of these questions describe you, you might be in a professional rut. The good news is that it happens to even the most successful women entrepreneurs, and there are things you can do to help you get unstuck.

 

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New York, November 6, 2015.Hilary Duff on the set of Younger in NYC. At one point something gets stuck on her shoe which causes her to break out in laughter. COPYRIGHT STELLA PICTURES

 

I was stuck in a similar rut a few years into creating my business. It seemed like I had just stalled in place and couldn’t go forward anymore. I was stuck dwelling on everything I thought I did wrong, and that consumed my thoughts. It finally occurred to me that I would never progress as long as I had this negative mindset that was clogging my creativity. Only when I stop obsessing and over-analyzing could I think clearly and make better business decisions.

 

Try some of the following suggestions to see if you can get out of your professional rut.

 

  1. Start creating the work only you can produce. Think back to why you started your business. It was because you had a passion to do something or produce something that was a game-changer. Has that role changed for you over the years so that now you’re more focused on the administrative side of the business and less on the creative side? Try to get back to your creative roots and do the thing that only you can do for your business. Hire people to handle the administrative tasks, and focus your energies on the life-sustaining things that make you shine. Everything else is just busy work that’s better done by someone else.
  2. Invest yourself in outside passions. Are you too focused on your business? If you put all of your energies into growing your company to the exclusion of all else, you can get stuck in a rut by not acknowledging the other things in life that give you joy and energy. Ask yourself what you’d really like to do if you had all the time in the world. Now, set a goal to accomplish that and hash out the steps it will take to get you there. Start with Step No. 1 as soon as you can.
  3. Talk with your mentor or someone who is already at a place where you’d like to be. If you don’t have a mentor, this would be a great time to find one. Think of all the people you network with. Who among your contacts is someone you look up to and respect for their work ethic and achievements? This might be your perfect mentor. Check in with career savvy friends, former colleagues, even your old college professors to get various perspectives about what might be holding you back. The more you talk with others, the more ideas you can generate to help you get out of your rut. Sometimes it’s easier to copy what another successful entrepreneur is doing and adapt those ideas to what works best for you.
  4. Hire a professional coach. We can easily get so caught up in the details of our daily lives that it’s hard to see the big picture and where we truly want to be in the future. A professional coach can bring you a different perspective that you maybe haven’t thought of, an area that you either need to focus on or even expand in your business. An independent, outside look into your life and business by a professional can add immense value to your personal and professional life.

 

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Rihana arrives at the Miu Miu fashion show F/W ready-to-wear 2014/2015 in Paris on March 5 2014. Photo: Stella Pictures

 

You don’t have to stay in your rut. There are things you can do to break the current cycle or downward spiral you’re in, and re-energize your business to get back on track. The motivation to make a change comes from having a clear vision of what you want to do and where you want to be, and identifying

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Susanne Birgersdotter

I am a true entrepreneurial spirit in a male-dominated industry that founded the fastest growing independent group in Sweden that creates solutions to appindustrin. Owns five companies where the business idea is to develop, design and deliver the largest applications for smartphone users worldwide. My goal is to develop my company and at the same time inspire other women to take the plunge into entrepreneurship sphere.

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