When Being Great at Your Job Isn't Enough
Habit #6: Putting Your Job Before Your Career
We’re continuing our How Women Rise series and have reached Habit #6: Putting Your Job Before Your Career. Each week we’ve been exploring the subtle habits that can hold women back from the success we’re fully capable of and this one is a big one. Because it’s not about ambition versus contentment. It’s about intention.
Finding Comfort and the Courage to Question It
Many of us have been there - that moment when you realize you’ve become really good at your job. You know how things work, you like your team, you’ve earned trust and respect. It feels good. Comfortable, even.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. In fact, it’s something to celebrate. Feeling grounded at work gives you space to breathe, to enjoy the people around you, and to show up confidently because you know what you’re doing.
But here’s where Sally Helgesen’s Habit #6: Putting Your Job Before Your Career hits home: sometimes that comfort can quietly turn into complacency. When you get so focused on being great at your job, you can lose sight of where you want to go next in your career.
I’ve seen this play out in two very different and equally valid ways:
One client, a senior finance leader, made a conscious decision to pause her upward climb when her kids hit high school. She loved her team, had flexibility, and felt fulfilled where she was. But she still invested in herself, attending leadership programs, working with a coach, and staying connected in her professional network. She wasn’t stuck, she was strategic. That was an intentional choice aligned with her life and values.
Another client realized that she’d spent so long being known as “the one who takes care of it all” and that "loves her job so much", that no one thought of her when a senior role opened up. Her reliability and competence (the very traits that made her invaluable) had boxed her in. She had put her job before her career without realizing it.
So when her colleague who was hired after her got promoted, she was resentful. We talked about how to use her voice to ask for what she wants, not just to be grateful for what she already has. (One of my favorite sayings is: Be grateful for what you have and fearless for what you want). As she started using her network and being clear about what she wants more of, other doors opened.
I want to be clear here (this is my belief, not from the book) - You don’t have to keep moving forward just because you think you’re supposed to. Ambition is not a treadmill you can’t step off of.
But if you feel that twinge of resentment when someone else moves ahead, pause and ask yourself "Is this truly what I want right now?" "Or have I let my current role quietly become the ceiling on my career?"
This is where intention matters most.
Staying put isn’t failure. It’s only problematic if it’s happening by default rather than by design. When you make a conscious choice to stay, you can still nurture your growth, your curiosity, and your future possibilities.
At the end of the day, loving your job and growing your career aren’t opposites. But one shouldn’t swallow the other.
When you act with intention - choosing when to stay, when to stretch, and when to move - you create a career path that’s not just successful, but sustainable and self-defined.
So how would you define yourself right now? Are you focused only on your current job, or on the trajectory of your career? And whatever your answer is, does it work for you?
You deserve to enjoy this life you are working so hard for. And I'm here to help.
Cheers to the future of your career,
Sharon
PS - Here are the 12 Habits we are walking through (from How Women Rise by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith) - Links to previous newsletters:
1 - Reluctance to Claim Your Achievements
2 - Expecting Others to Spontaneously Notice and Reward Your Contributions
3 - Overvaluing Expertise
4 - Building Rather than Leveraging Relationships
5 - Failing to Enlist Allies from Day One
6 - Putting Your Job Before Your Career
7 - The Perfection Trap
8 - The Disease to Please
9 - Minimizing
10 - Too Much
11 - Ruminating
12 - Letting Your Radar Distract You
You're Not Alone
Let's go further - TOGETHER. I help women define what success means to them and achieve it with more joy and less stress. We figure out the habits that are helping you and ones holding you back so we can adjust accordingly. Imagine feeling fulfilled, happy, AND successful? It is totally possible, with the right support.
The first step is to schedule a free 30-minute strategy session to explore where you are and where you want to be. SCHEDULE HERE. It takes 30 seconds to schedule and will help you move forward. Don't delay! I'm offering discounts to those that schedule this call before October 31st.
Life is too short to stay stressed and stuck. Don't let another season slip by. I've helped so many people reclaim their life. I can help you too.
