Stuck or fearful in current role + no time to find a new one?
The false dilemma keeping smart, stuck people frozen. In this article, we discuss five small moves that can help.
Every January and February, I watch the same pattern play out . Someone has spent the holidays half-present — mentally drafting resignation letter, searching for new roles, resolving to change a lot in their career/life so the new year brings the new you out. The resolutions are strong… and then, slowly, the calendar fills back up, the urgency fades, and they find themselves exactly where they were — except now carrying the added weight of another year that didn’t change. If that resonates with you even a little, this piece is for you. Not because I have a clean answer, but because I’ve been stuck too — and I’ve spent years sitting with people who are — and there are a few things that actually help.
Actually, I have been writing this note for a few months. But it did not quite feel right for a while. Now, seeing the pattern of frustration in people again in March, I thought it is a good time to send this.
At the end of the day, after holidays pass and the new year does not bringing the “promised changes”, the old situations people have resurface. And that core situation is: many people are stuck or fearful in jobs they don’t like.
People get stuck for many reason: they don’t like the culture, they don’t connect with the mission or vision, or they are stagnant and not learning much. During the course of coaching over hundreds of people, I have seen all kinds of reasons people are stuck, and it is saddening to see so much potential going to waste when well-meaning, hard-working people get stuck that way, work hard, and don’t get the rewards they deserve.
(One side note: there is nothing wrong about doing a job for just the money — even if you don’t like it — and using the remaining time and energy to follow your passions. But being truly okay with such situation is very hard — that itself takes a lot of work and wisdom in today’s culture. I did that that myself for the last 3-4 years at Facebook/Meta where I realized I did not like the job, but kept marching on — and eventually carved out a different path for myself with a lot of help from other people! That is a topic for another newsletter.)
One issue that compounds this problem is that when one is not in a good state of mind, work takes more time than usual. That leaves you with even less time to search for a better role outside. Most people I come across also think that finding a job is a full-time job and they believe that they cannot afford to spend time looking for a job, especially in this the AI-powered boom and stressful times.
In a nutshell, here’s the dilemma I see over and over: “Do I excel at the current job or find time for a search?” False choice. When we force it into A | B, we tend to choose neither — freeze, feel guilty, then doom-scroll. The better frame is A & B: do your job well enough, and in parallel, make small, consistent moves that keep the future alive.
But how do you do that?
Here are a few things I am going to share. If you connect with them, and want to get deeper, you respond to this email saying what caught your attention.
Why “stuck” happens
Beneath a busy calendar, I find that people are “stuck” for deeper reasons. Here are a few.
Grief: the current role didn’t become what you hoped. Name it, don’t gaslight it.
Fear & identity: immigration status, reputation, self-doubt—these are real constraints, not excuses.
All-or-nothing thinking: “If I can’t run the perfect search, I’ll wait.” Waiting becomes the strategy.
The watermark: a prior win sets a bar you can’t stop staring at. You compare today’s hour to yesterday’s exit. Motivation tanks.
I’ve felt all of that. A friend once bet me I wouldn’t leave within six months of getting my green card. I said I would. I lost the bet. ($500 down the drain.) Action is scary—especially when it threatens a hard-won sense of safety.
So, what can you do if you are stuck for any of these or other reasons? Here are a few specific insights I have communicated to my coaching clients and then helped implement the specifics in our coaching practice.
Don’t serialize your career
The biggest trap is putting steps into a strict sequence that doesn’t need sequencing: “I’ll start a search after I get my GC / promo / bonus / project lands.” Months slide by. If it must be sequential (legal or contractual reasons), fine. Otherwise, parallelize. Small, imperfect, reversible steps now beat big, perfect, mythical steps “later.”
A tiny, honest starter kit — for this week
Don’t make a splash. Make quiet progress.
In our culture, heroes get big outcomes. We worship great results. But what goes behind great results is great consistent process. Follow the process and the results are likely to follow.
Here are a few things you can start doing. Each should take less than 10 minutes.
Minimum Viable Progress (MVP)
Open a doc titled “Target Roles – v0.1”. List 3 companies, 3 problems you want to solve, and 3 people you admire there. That’s it. Save. You’ve created a surface area for action.
Come back to it tomorrow. Or pick a different item.
Signal, not spray
Write a 5-bullet “work in public” note (what shipped, what’s next, where you need input) and send it to one stakeholder. Great work whispers—hold the mic.
One real conversation
DM someone you respect: “Would you be open to a 15-minute chat about how your team is approaching X? I’m mapping the space.” Ask for perspective, not a job.
You will likely hear crickets. That is the point. Rejection is the point. We want to learn to hold and acknowledge and work through the rejections. Authors of many great books went through a lot of rejections — The Alchemist (64 rejections), Chicken Soup for the Soul (144 rejections), Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone (12 rejections), Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (121 rejections), and so on. The list goes on. I have heard a few authors talk about those rejections and they were hurt. But they also learned to process it.
(If you want help processing such triggers, reply to this email too.)
Decide one thing
List 3 stuck choices. Label each as reversible or one-way. Ship a reversible one by Friday. Momentum is a habit.
Acceptance practice (2 minutes)
Say out loud: “My job is currently a means, not my end. That’s okay for now. I choose one small step today.” Acceptance doesn’t make you passive; it frees the energy you’re burning on denial.
Which one do you want to commit to?
Bigger dreams, smaller steps
In my coaching work we do something counterintuitive: dream bigger than you ever have—then take smaller steps than your ego thinks are worthy. Those tiny moves do three things:
Surface the real frictions you’re hiding from (skills, time, fear).
Recast your identity from “stuck employee” to “builder in motion.”
Let compounding work for you. One email a week is 50 warm threads a year.
If you’re wrestling with whether to “double down” at work or “go all-in” on a search, remember: most of us don’t have the luxury of single-threading our lives. The game is to cycle attention with intention—do your hour well, close the tab (literally), and switch.
A few questions worth sitting with
Here are a few questions that many people have found helpful in our work. Take a few moments to either write answers down or feel them sitting quietly.
Do you (mostly) look forward to what you do each week? If not, what part of the work still feels alive?
If you knew you had to stay six more months, how would you make that time meaningful?
If you knew you could leave in six months, what tiny actions would you start today?
Who are three people you could learn from—without asking them for anything?
If we haven’t talked for some time, I’d love to hear how you’re doing—even if you’re just sanity-checking your next step. Hit reply and tell me (in one line) which of the five tiny moves you’ll try this week. If there’s a way I can help, I’ll point you to a resource or share a quick thought.
Wishing you clarity, courage, and a restful time,
— Yogi
P.S. If you prefer community learning, I also share tools and office hours in my Skool group. Join for free here: https://www.skool.com/yogi-sharma-academy-2064