Beyond the Ladder: How to Recognize Career Progress When It Doesn't Look Like You Expected
"I thought I’d be further along in my career by now."
When Melanie joined her new team, she had high hopes.
She had been in team leadership positions for the past few years and looked forward to making an impact in a new area.
In order to get into the specific type of work she was interested in, she ended up taking a lateral move to a new division with the expectation that she'd be able to move forward faster due to her previous experiences.
But something wasn't sitting right.
"I enjoy the work I'm doing, but I can't shake the feeling that I should be further ahead—or that I've fallen behind. I'm wondering, did I make the wrong choice with this lateral move?" she confessed, frustration evident in her voice.
A Career Crossroads
I’ve been in Melanie’s shoes more than once—taking a lateral move to shift career tracks or enter a new organization.
It’s a common scenario across industries and experience levels: you make a strategic move that seems like a step toward your ultimate goal.
But in Melanie’s case, I sensed she was losing sight of the very motivation that led her to make the move in the first place.
I asked her what made her want to take the role on her current team, and this was her response was:
"In my previous role, I had more leadership responsibility, but the work wasn't as complex as what I'm doing now. I wanted more challenging projects and greater visibility. I care about being connected to the mission, and my past work felt more like busywork than meaningful impact."
This was a powerful reflection, so I followed up by asking if she felt like she was accomplishing the goals she'd set out to accomplish when she moved to this new team.
"I'm working on high-impact projects that truly move the needle, and that's rewarding," she acknowledged. "But given my previous role and where I am now, it doesn't feel like progress."
When Success Doesn't Feel Like Success
On one hand, I understood where Melanie was coming from. Her title hadn't changed, and in the traditional sense of upward mobility, she hadn't "advanced."
But for all intents and purposes, Melanie was moving forward. She'd set a goal to join a team that does more impactful and visible work, and she was actively doing that.
The real issue wasn't her work or her progress—it was her perception of progress.
This disconnect between reality and perception is something I've seen regularly with ambitious professionals, and it's what we needed to unpack.
Four Reasons You Feel Behind in Your Career (Even When You're Not)
After working with people facing similar challenges as Melanie, I've identified four primary reasons that leads to feeling like you should be further along in your career than you are:
1. Lack of Clarity Around Career Vision
Melanie had a plan for her career—she wanted to move to a different team to have more impact and to move forward in a different space. But she seemed to lose sight of that vision as time went on, and it left her feeling stuck.
If you're in this situation, it's important to refocus on the goal.
Ask yourself:
Is the goal a specific title or position, regardless of what area it's in?
Is the goal to be in a highly specialized space?
Is the goal to have a certain type of impact, regardless of title?
It's completely fair to change your goal as you evolve professionally, but having clarity is still critical. Otherwise, you end up chasing targets that have nothing to do with where you actually want to end up.
2. Comparisons to Peers
Seeing those around you seemingly advance faster than you believe you are, can create a sense of being left behind. But it's important to understand that career paths differ dramatically, even within the same field.
In Melanie's case, her previous team members were moving forward, but it was in an area that didn't have as much impact or relevancy as what Melanie said she wanted.
This goes back to having clarity around your overall goal—do you want to "move ahead" for the sake of moving ahead, or do you want to be intentional about how and where you're moving?
If you don't have clarity around this, you end up comparing yourself to people whose goals aren't the same as yours, which is a recipe for unnecessary frustration.
3. Unrealistic Expectations
We often set ambitious career timelines without fully accounting for external circumstances, organizational realities, or the learning curve associated with new roles.
Melanie expected to advance at the same pace she was advancing on her last team, without considering the fact that the scope, complexity, and requirements were different.
The environment had shifted, so the expectation of the pace being the same was unrealistic.
It's important to set your expectations so that they align with your current reality, otherwise you run the risk of being disappointed by outcomes that are actually quite reasonable in context.
4. Impatience with Growth
It would be great if career growth happened in a straight line, but more often than not, it occurs in waves. However, when we don't expect this, and we're looking for continuous linear progression rather than peaks and valleys, we can find ourselves questioning the necessary valleys of growth.
Melanie was in a valley, looking up at the peak and wondering how to get there. This is completely normal—we should be seeking out getting to higher heights.
We just have to remember that in order to get to the next height, we have to climb. If we don't come to terms with that, we'll end up frustrated by our lack of progress because we weren't prepared for the journey to the top.
Finding Your Way Forward
In the end, Melanie realized she had been struggling with all of these factors. She hadn't adjusted her expectations when she went to the new team. That led her to compare herself to her peers and grow frustrated with her pace of progression, losing sight of her career vision.
Now that she understood what the issue was, we could work to clearly craft her new vision, the expectations associated with that vision, and block out everything else.
This process of recalibration isn't easy, but it's essential. It involves:
Redefining Success: What does success actually look like for you in your current role and beyond? Is it about title, impact, learning, or something else entirely?
Setting Contextual Expectations: Understand the realistic progression timeline in your new environment and adjust accordingly.
Focusing on Growth Over Comparison: Measure your progress against your own goals rather than the paths of others.
Embracing the Journey: Recognize that valleys of growth are not setbacks but necessary parts of meaningful progression.
For Melanie, this reframing was transformative.
She began to see her lateral move not as a career stall but as a strategic repositioning that was already delivering on her most important professional values: meaningful work, complexity, and mission alignment.
The Bottom Line
If you find yourself feeling like you should be further along in your career, take a moment to examine whether you're dealing with any of these four factors. Often, the issue isn't that you're actually behind—it's that your perception of progress needs recalibration.
Career advancement isn't always about climbing straight up the ladder. Sometimes it's about moving laterally to position yourself for more meaningful growth, building depth before height, or simply taking the time to master new skills before taking on greater responsibility.
By clarifying your vision, setting realistic expectations, avoiding unhelpful comparisons, and embracing the natural rhythm of professional growth, you can transform that feeling of being behind into a confident understanding that you're exactly where you need to be—on your own unique path forward.
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