Are we too obsessed with progression?

Promotions are great, but think about why you *really* want one.

If your boss sat you down and said…

“Work out however much money you need each year to pay your rent, buy the essentials, and buy some things that bring you joy. In short: the salary you need to be comfortable, but not to go crazy with your spending. Let me know how much that is, and it’s your salary from now on. Your job will remain the same. Or, if you want to do some different things; work in a new department, or change your working hours, that’s fine. The only catch is that you can’t ‘move up’. Your title will stay the same. You won’t have more responsibility or be any more ‘senior’ to anyone else. You won’t be taking a step upwards, but staying where you are.”

…Would you take that deal?

For some people, that’d be an easy yes. The reasons will differ. For a portion, the ‘yes’ will be because the main motivation they have to work is the money - if that’s taken care of, they’re all good. For another, it’ll be because they really like their current job and could happily see themselves doing it for a long time.

But for the other camp, it’s a no. To the ‘yes’ side, this seems mad. But for no-ers, work is not just about the money, or about the flexible hours. To these people, the idea of staying stagnant is horrifying. They don’t want sidesteps or to hang about. They want to be moving up, up, up.

There’s nothing wrong with either answer or either type of person, in my view. But I do wonder whether in some cases, the prioritisation of progression over all else can be to our detriment. Or perhaps it’s the way we value the appearance of progression that’s the problem. I’ve seen this before: journalists who want to move to the ‘editor’ role, despite preferring writing to editing or managing, simply because they want to be senior. I’ve seen people go into jobs asking about progression plans, and heard many say that if they’re not seeing any opportunities to move up within six months or a year, they’re out. I’ve spoken with people who say “I love my job, but there’s nowhere for me to go, so I’m going to start looking for something new”. I’ve heard friends cite the “embarrassment” of having stayed in the same position for “too long”. I’ve noticed this trait in myself: it has come in when I’ve made a fuss about titles, questioning why one person has one that ‘sounds better’ than mine.

In the real world, of course, progression usually does come with a payrise and life is not like the scenario above, so money is a big part of the why. But I do think it’s worth questioning how much money is truly worth to us, especially versus other things, like doing work we enjoy or having lower levels of stress or having time to spend time with people we love. How much do you need to be comfortable? And past that point, does an additional £3k make much of a difference? What about if it also comes with an inflated title? What about if in order to get the £3k and the title and the public confirmation that you’re doing a good job, you have to take on a bunch more work?

There are times our focus on progression can obscure other things from view. It can mean we’re less willing to take risks that could offer more happiness - I don’t want to have to start over at the bottom - or that we move further away from what we actually like doing. If it’s progression above all else, it’s difficult to feel content with where we are. You get a promotion - great! Now what? It’s time to work towards another one. More money, please, more power, more respect. If you tie yourself to the idea of your career as a ladder, it’s hard to do anything but either look up at the rungs above and desire being there, or look down and fear descending (and of course, the higher you go, the scarier the fall). It’s difficult to pause on a ladder and consider whether the point you’re at is enjoyable, or to look around and see that there are other possible ways of being; sitting! ambling! walking like a crab! anything other than climbing up, up, up.

I don’t want to suggest that everyone lets go of wanting progression and embraces stagnation forever. If you find the possibility of upwards steps motivational, fantastic. Go forth. Instead I encourage questioning, being curious. If you want a promotion, it’s worth knowing why, whether that’s because you’d like more money in order to one day be able to buy your own home (and again, ask yourself why you want to buy your own home, and then when you have that answer, ask why again) or because you really would enjoy the increased responsibility. Digging into your why won’t only help make you more motivated, but it could save you from continuing to unthinkingly clamber up a ladder that you don’t really want to be on.

And I want us to give ourselves permission to be content with enough, to change up the rigid dichotomy of striving versus stagnating. A promotion is worth celebrating, sure, but so is continuing to do a job that you enjoy, day in, day out. There should be no shame in continuing to do what you’re doing, if that’s what makes you happy. We are not great white sharks. We do not die if we stop swimming forwards. We need to reframe stillness not as drowning but as floating on our backs and looking up at the sky, appreciating the warmth of the water, and knowing that we can swim in any direction.

Work-related reading recs:

• On the topic of career ladders, I recommend this piece I wrote a while back about the benefits of instead having a career ‘lattice’

• More recently on Stylist, I loved Kate Lucey (my former boss!) on why we need to quit Whatsapping our colleagues

• And ICYMI, chronoworking is spreading

• I wrote a piece about the link between loneliness and burnout

• And another excellent Kate Lucey piece on all the extra faff that faces women

  when they quit

• How do we fix friction at work?

• Really liked this story on working at a bookshop

• More on the gig economy’s dangers

• Gen Z are (rightfully) fed up of being called lazy