When You Outgrow the Career You Built, and What To Do Next

In this episode of The Career Refresh, Jill Griffin breaks down what really happens when you step into a new version of your career, and why the people around you may not be ready for your evolution. Jill explores how identity, boundaries, and internal validation shape your career growth and leadership presence. If you're in a season of reinvention, feeling friction from others, or sensing that you’re outgrowing old patterns, this episode gives you the clarity, language, and mindset shifts to evolve with confidence and intention.

• Why your growth disrupts old dynamics and how to stay grounded when others resist
• How to stop shrinking into outdated expectations and lead with intention
• The four leadership shifts required when you shift into your next-level identity

Transcript

Job, Career, Purpose Reset

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Hey everyone, I'm Jill Griffin, the host of the Career Refresh, and I am really glad that you are back. This week we are talking about when you outgrow your career or your job, right? So job, career, purpose. I've talked about this before. Job might be something when you just get into work. It doesn't matter your age, it doesn't matter your experience level. You're new, you're figuring it out. You're like, is this the right thing for me? Career is when it really starts to gel and you're striving, you're doing, you're achieving, you're starting to get ahead, you're really moving forward. And then purpose is when you've moved past the mindset of I'm building my career, and you really start getting into purpose-driven work. I've talked about this at length before, but why I want to ground on it again is that you could go from a job to a career to a purpose without changing your title, your business card, or your company. And that's what I'm talking about today. When you outgrow your job or your career, what do you do? And how do you navigate that? There's a moment that I often hear many high achievers experience that they feel like they can't talk about this because you've done all the right things. You follow the plan, you made the achievements, maybe you have some notoriety within your company or your industry. And suddenly things that you're doing starts to feel a little bit small or a little bit off. And I don't mean small because some of us want to continue to achieve, and that's amazing. And other of us, it just feels like I can't believe I'm still doing the same job for this many years, and this is the way it looks. That's what I mean by it starts to feel small. And what happens during this is you start to get itchy. I say call it itchy on the inside, where you're like, I shouldn't really be complaining because there's other people who could complain about their work or career environments, and I really shouldn't, but I'm just not happy. And that's what I'm talking about. So if this episode is going to dig in here and really start to see where this is a real thing, what other people think about it, what you think about it, and how you navigate past it. So it's most important to think about what are you gonna do next? All right, let's dig in. So there's usually this moment. Sometimes it can be subtle, it can be, you know, nuanced, it could be in your face. It's gonna show up differently for everyone. It's not like one hero moment, but you suddenly are in a place where you've changed and the career or the job that you're in hasn't. And the gap between those two keeps widening. And then what ends up happening is you're starting to notice that you are really good at what you're working on and what you're doing, but you're no longer energized by it. Success may start to feel like maintenance more than growth. You're restless, even though nothing's wrong. There's really nothing to quite put your finger on or complain about, but you cannot picture yourself in this role for much longer. You're respected, you've got, you know, great peers cross-functionally, you're you're known to your skip level, but you're not fulfilled. And it's not about this feeling of like, oh, I should be more grateful. There's identity in this that you might be outgrowing the infrastructure in which you're sitting in. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's evolution. This is gonna happen. So when we break down why this happens, is one, you've outgrown the identity that your career required, right? You've mastered what you needed to master. And on that S curve, right? It's hard, it's hard, it's hard. It starts getting easy. I'm feeling challenged, and now you've started to master it, right? That's that S curve that we um often experience in our careers. There's mastery, and you know how to do it, but there isn't the same alignment. I experienced this at different points in my career too. When I was doing strategy work, it was really, really fulfilling. And then when I went into operations work, it was really fulfilling. But in both of them, there was a time in which I loved the work, but both of them had a time in which the same exact work wasn't fulfilling. So when I was holding a chief operating officer role, I loved the idea of being able to impact an organization in a different way than I could strategically, meaning street business strategy or marketing strategy. But in both of them, it's still you get to this point sometimes where you're like, yeah, I'm like, this isn't what am I doing here? What am I doing next? This is this is not like stretching me the way I want to be stressed. There may also be a time in which your values have shifted, but the job didn't, right? And this might be like suddenly, it could be nuanced again, it may happen quietly, but what mattered a few years ago no longer matters to you. And then the other way I see this happen is that maybe the original story that you built your career on is outdated. This may be because you started in finance and now you really want to go into operations, or you started in sales and you want to go into finance, right? It's it's this idea that the original thing that you started your career on is suddenly outdated. And you may have originally gone for a path of stability. Now you're finding yourself you're at overachievement or you're getting external validation from others. But if these things stop and you're no longer getting them, and you built your career on top of that achievement, the stability or the external validation, again, you can see why suddenly you're feeling like I need to rethink this and where am I going next? The role just may be small for you. And it doesn't matter if you're working for a large global organization or if you're working for a 10-person or less company. The role may suddenly become too small for you based on what you are doing. So what do you do? Well, you could do nothing and you can work on your mindset, right? Either way, there's no escaping the mindset work. You're either making working on your mindset to do the job that you're being paid to do in your own version of excellence and then find another way to stimulate your brain, but work on the mindset to be able to sit there and be able to be in a job that you're not so crazy about, or the mindset to get out of that role and find something else. There's no escaping the mindset. You're either working to stay where you are or you're working to figure out what's next. So I work with a lot of clients in what um are now being called the Magnificent Seven, right? That's a stock market term. It was coined by Michael Hartnett, and he was the chief investment, or he is the chief investment strategist at Bank of America. The Magnificent Seven, just so we're clear when talking about the same thing, it's Meta, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Alphabet, Google, uh, Microsoft, Nvidia, and sometimes Tesla is considered in that too. And I work with a lot of clients here, and this is shared with permission, that many of them took the jobs that they're in based on what they were going to become in their careers. They were um, you know, they were appreciative for the experience, their bank accounts feel lush, their benefits feel awesome. But a lot of them that I'm talking to based on the current economic situation, the social, um, the social economic situation, the geopolitical situation, depending on where they are, whatever country they're in, these are the things that are starting to pop up for them. So they took a job because it was a great job and it felt very mission-based, and that they were going to do this thing together. And now suddenly they're not really feeling it. So while they are engaged, they are thoughtful, and they are genuinely wanting to grow, many of them are finding that they're questioning the purpose, right? That where it used to be mission-based, now it's lifestyle-based or money-based. And they often feel like they can't control many aspects of their role. So this is another way in which this shift, this itchy on the inside can show up for you. And again, I share this with permission, understanding that even if you believe that if you had one of these roles, things would be different. If you were making that money in that company with that title and that opportunity, you know what? It you'd be fine. Heck, you wouldn't want to change anything. That would be the dream job. And I'm sharing this because even at these big companies where there's plenty of opportunity, I want you to know that people also feel like they do outgrow their roles. So I'm telling you this because when you're in this, it doesn't matter the size of the fishbowl that you're in. If you're in a fishbowl, which you're a fish in the fishbowl, sitting in the ocean, so that you think you can see everything, but you're really in the fishbowl. If you're in that position and suddenly it all feels very like, ah, this isn't the right thing for me. I just want you to know it's not the circumstances. This is our brains. Our brains will start to do this for them. And when you're building what's next, not everyone is down for it. Not everyone is ready for it. And I don't mean you. If you're building what next, I mean your colleagues, your peers, the people around you, the organization you work within, perhaps family and friends. It's going to bring its own unique challenges and people are going to have a lot of opinions. I still have people ask me if I'm, you know, if I'm going to get a job. I'm like, you realize I have a job. Like I surface companies and see thousands of people a year. I have a job. But they think of me, you know, like when I worked for Martha Stewart or when I was, you know, working with Coca-Cola or Microsoft or any of these big, glamorous, amazing brands that I'm so fortunate to have the experience with. But a lot of people consider if you're not in an environment like that, then you're just you're in the hallway, you're in the waiting zone for what the job is. So I'm going to come back to that. A few months ago, um, there's a podcast called What the Wild Card Podcast. And Shonda Rhimes, we all know, um, the great producer, showrunner, uh, writer, shared something as she was being interviewed on that show that speaks to this experience. And she talked about what it's like when people aren't ready for the future version of you. And that she also said, and I'm like, my God, this is such an amazing mindset that she was grounded in, that she never built her career based on other people's approval, that she built it around her own approval, her own vision, her own imagination, her own values. And these are the leadership identity conversations that I have every single week with clients, right? Whether you're reinventing your role, setting a boundary, starting a business, or just saying yes to something that you've avoided for years, not everyone is going to celebrate that shift. They may feel threatened, they may feel confused, they may think you're entitled or spoiled. And they're going to be inconvenienced at times with the changes that you want to make, right? Because they're everybody is centering on themselves. Like, what does this mean to me if Jill changes and doesn't do this anymore? I've heard this a lot of like this learned and confidence where supervisors will say to their team, I can't promote you. You're too valuable. Like, oh, so you're going to hold me back because of your inability to plan and to think about my career growth and what I could do to grow to the country is going to make your life or your day-to-day a little bit uncomfortable, a little bit more challenging. So you're not going to promote me. That's what we're talking about. That's another way that I could show up. Some may just prefer a version of you that requires less than them, right? And I want you to remember that leadership is always about who you're becoming, right? We need support, no doubt, but we also need to be stretched and we need to be thinking about if we're not seeking validation from others, who are we when we evolve? What is that next version? So going back to Shonda, her growth was about responsibility and not waiting for other people to approve or applaud or understand her choices. So the lesson here that I took away from her is that sometimes you evolve before your environment knows what to do with you. And that might be uncomfortable. Your job in this moment is not to shrink, it is not to resource out your brain and your opinion and ask everybody what they think. Because unless you're working with a mentor or a therapist or a coach that really has no ulterior motive and isn't invested in the outcome or the answer because they're not in your life that way. Those are the only sort of neutral people that I often find. It's it's there are times in which we get a mentor or a sponsor in which they are really neutral, but most of the people in our life are going to have an opinion about what we're doing. So your job is to tell yourself that the truth is that this is changing, even if you don't know where it's going. So I want to borrow some of the spirit of some of the other things that I heard on that podcast. And it's really pausing and thinking, this is time to get that pan about notes app opened. Maybe even pause this episode. So if you're ready, what version of yourself is emerging that your current role cannot or will not recognize? And where are you waiting for someone else to validate a change that you already know you need to make? What part of you is being expressed outside of work that suddenly has no space to express inside of work? I'm not talking about anything around social advocacy or political situations because depending on the culture in which you work in, every company has their own approach to those conversations in the office. So I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about are you finding that you're doing lots of creative work outside of the office, but for whatever reason, it can't be done in the office and it can't be that part of you can't be brought in there. That's what I'm saying. Is there is there a place where suddenly you find yourself sort of in this doorway of understanding what's next? And as I mentioned, when you start changing, people around you may react. Leaders may want you to stay the course. Colleagues may have liked the past version of you more. Um, I talked about this before on the podcast. When you're a peer and then suddenly you're promoted to be the leader of the peers, right? There's an area where people might be like, oh, what's going on here? Why her, why him? Your team may rely on your consistency, not your evolution, because they don't know how to or want to figure out how to keep up. And again, people may be self-threatened, confused, or just inconvenienced by the shift that you want to make. And I'm telling you, this is all noise. People are going to respond to the version of you that they're used to, not the one that you're becoming. And this is where it's hard. And the practical part is what do you do when it no longer fits? So, first, and I want you to think about like the step, the first step sometimes can be really avoided because without clarity, every sort of thing feels funny. But I want you to think through what part of work drains you? Is there a part that's misaligned? Is there a part where your values and the work you're doing no longer match the environment? Naming it and naming what it is. We're not doing anything yet. We're not quitting jobs, we're not doing any of that unless we have the luxury and you know, huge bank account to do that. That's not what we're recommending. We're just creating awareness because that awareness precedes the change that we need to make. Next thing is I want you to separate and where you identify as a leader, what your opera, what your um occupation is, they're not the same thing, right? You may conflate them, but that's when the shift may feel more like a crisis versus a progression. Wherever I am, whatever I'm dropped into, whether I'm volunteering somewhere or working within, you know, the Griffin method, my business, I'm still showing up as a leader. I'm still showing up as a coach. It doesn't matter what the task is that I'm actually doing, that's who I am. That's what you want to think about too. Who are you as a leader? Because when you start to conflate your identity and your occupation, it's gonna feel a little bit more intense. So I want you to ask who am I becoming? What part of me is underutilized or ignored? Is there an identity or a feeling of an identity that's emerging that my current role cannot reflect? And that's how you want to understand your next vision and where you're going. So defining what growth means now. We talk about three-year plans and five-year plans, great. That's not what I'm talking about. Even if you take it down to 30 days and think through, or even if it's like 90 days and it's a quarter, what does growth mean? Not five years ago, not what's on your resume, now. Growth could look like more meaning, more impact, more space, less urgency, less pressure, maybe a different kind of challenge. Those can all also look like growth outside of a conventional shape of what growth looks like. So I want you to really think about what is the shape of growth for you now as you're having these thoughts. And if you've been listening for a while, you know that I call the space between no more and not yet the hallway. Most people want to skip this phase because it's uncomfortable and it can be uncertain. And the hallway is where the clarity forms. You cannot force a decision before it's time. This is where you need space, you need grace, you need to find time to think, but not necessarily because you're thinking and like worrying the problem and keep thinking of the challenge. It's meditate, it's exercise, it's do a craft or hobby, it's play with children, it's do something that's outside of the normal thinking about the problem and really get some space from that because it's in those quiet times, it's in those nooks and crannies that you're often able to find some semblance of a seed of an idea of what you'll do next. I've also talked about Julia Cameron, the author, she wrote The Artist's Way. This is another time in which one of the best things about the artist's way is it's used in lots of different ways, but this idea of taking yourself on an artist date, the idea of, you know what, grab a charger, a battery charger, maybe a notebook, maybe some colorful pens, throw it in a bag and go take a walk in a town or a village that you haven't walked around in and just uncover, explore, sit somewhere, sit in the cafe, have a meal, pause for a bit. That's what we're talking about, like the unstructured time where you're not thinking about the intensity of the problem, but you're thinking about life and things and see what comes up for you. Outgoing your career does not mean that you made a wrong turn. It just means that you're ready for the next chapter. And you're not starting over because that's what I thought I was doing. Let me share a little story. So when I left corporate almost 10 years ago now, which is like mind-boggling to me, I thought that I had to toss out all of my previous experience, right? My time-leading strategy innovation from Microsoft, Coca-Cola, Samsung, Walmart, Mondelez, these big brands. And I let people who had a strong aversion to corporate or anything, anyone or anything that came from corporate, be the experience and be the loudest voices in the room around me, telling me that all of that was bad and evil and capitalism and corrupt. When I first left and going into professional growth and coaching, that it had to come from a different source, right? Whatever, we're all human. That was my messy part. So when I was building what was next, it was probably like a four or five month period. When I was building what was next for me, I was doing it without the toolbox of my experience and my excellence. So the last 20 plus years of professional growth and mindset, I've done like years of doing this, and I still can fall into it. And I share that as like, look, we're all on our path, right? We're all messy at times. So luckily, this drama of me like, no, I can't use any of those tools. I have to rethink everything. Luckily, I had enough uh of awareness and a self-awareness to get myself a coach and get my face coached off and remind myself of who I was. So learn from my mistakes. You are not starting from nothing. You are building on top of everything you've already created, all of those experiences and everything that you are about to become. All of that gets to be brought with you into what's next. It's not an ending, it's an evolution. And look, if you're feeling this shift, it's not random, really. Think about it as an invitation. I know a lot of people right now are really rethinking how they want to approach different things. They still want to make money, they still want to succeed, but does it have to look the same way? And I think this is some of the greatest things that we've learned from the younger generations, the Gen Z or the Friends of You. Hi, everyone that are listening, that you have been teaching us there can be another way of looking at work to make sure that work works for everyone. All right. I want you to really think this through and think and listen to what is this all telling you? You don't need permission to grow. You don't need it's again, I'm not saying it's gonna be comfortable, but you don't need if you want to rotate internally or you want to go to a different department or you want to eventually leave the company or the organization that you work with, really come to yourself. Find a neutral third party that can help you figure some of this stuff out, not somebody who is going to be impacted either by your stature, your title, or what's in your bank account. Okay. I'm also doing another episode that takes a little bit of this work a little bit deeper and some of the guidance and reflection questions that have helped both me and hundreds of others kind of fix it or figure out what's next. All right, friends. Until next time, embrace possibility, be intentional, and always, always, always be kind. All right. I'll speak to you soon.