A promotion is often a cause for celebration—more money, a better title, more responsibilities, etc—but when is it not?
For several of my clients, a promotion actually feels like a trap.
Take this client for example:
“I'm very well respected at my job and everyone always raves about how much they enjoy working with me, but I don't feel that. I don't feel like I do anything important, and I can't even efficiently articulate what I do.”
Doing work that doesn’t feel important or meaningful to you is already a very energy-draining situation to be in. But it turns out that getting recognized for that work, actually makes it feel worse.
There can be a huge disconnect when you’re not happy with your work product but others are telling you you’re doing a great job. You get recognized for work that you’re not proud of or that may fall into the “you’re good at it” category but not the “you enjoy doing it” category. Or you’re showing up mostly checked out, firing at 25% capacity, and people are raving about you? How do you reconcile that?
Another client said it this way. He received a promotion earlier in the year with a nice salary bump but it feels even worse now. He’s doing the same thing as before but now feels like he has more pressure since he’s being paid more.
A promotion may also be a trap if it’s moving you in a direction that is less and less aligned with the work you want to be doing.
“I’ve recently realized that a lot of the core tasks of my job that become more important as you advance are my least favorite parts of it.”
This client confidently chose to decline the promotion at her company because she could see that it was going to be more work that was out of alignment with her strengths. It may have made “no logical sense” to turn it down, but it was absolutely the right decision for her.
My dad also recently shared this article with me that 69 percent of employees would knock back a promotion in order to protect their mental health, according to new research by Atlassian.
So if you’re waiting for a promotion or thinking that it might resolve the stuckness you’re currently feeling, I invite you to make sure it’s not actually going to feel like a trap.