Are you ‘grounded’ or in a rut in your career? ‘Stable’ or stuck?

For a long time, I told myself I was choosing stability.

I was working at a prestigious university, doing work that mattered, surrounded by smart people. The role had legitimacy and the paycheck came on the same day, in the same amount, every month. The path forward was clear and the structure well-defined. At that point in my life—raising very young kids—that predictability felt not just comforting, but necessary. My work mattered, and it held up easily when I described it to others. I could justify why staying made sense.

And yet, I was unhappy.

Not in a dramatic, crisis-driven way. There was no single bad boss or catastrophic moment that forced my hand. It was quieter than that. A low-grade, persistent sense that I was out of alignment with myself. A feeling that I was expending more energy maintaining the arrangement than the work itself required.

The tricky part was that I already knew what I wanted. I wanted to leave and build my own business full-time. I had started it on the side. I had a growing number of clients and the work energized me. I felt more like myself doing that work than I had in years. Still, I stayed in my academic role far longer than I needed to.

The explanation I gave—over and over again—was the same: I like stability. I didn’t want to lose a consistent monthly paycheck. I was being cautious, responsible, and thoughtful.

All of that was true. And also not the whole truth.

What I can see now is that “stability” was doing a lot of emotional labor for me. It allowed me to avoid naming something harder and more uncomfortable: I was stuck and I was playing it small.

When stability and stuckness look the same

This distinction—between choosing stability and being stuck—is one I see constantly in my coaching work. And it’s not an easy one to make, because culturally, we tend to reward staying put. We admire endurance and praise loyalty. And the more “together” your life looks from the outside, the harder it can be to question whether staying is still serving you.

But psychologically, stability and stuckness can feel almost identical from the inside. Both involve staying. Both involve tolerating discomfort. Both can be justified with perfectly reasonable explanations.

The difference isn’t in the external facts of your life. It’s in your internal relationship to them.

When you’re choosing stability, there’s usually a sense of agency underneath it. Even if the situation isn’t ideal, the decision feels settled. You’re not constantly renegotiating it in your head. You know why you’re there and the trade-offs feel conscious.

When you’re stuck, the decision never quite lands. You keep revisiting the same questions without moving forward. You tell yourself stories about why now isn’t the right time, but those stories keep changing. There’s often a low-level irritability—toward your work, your schedule, often even yourself—that doesn’t resolve with rest or time off.

For me, the clearest signal was how much mental energy I spent justifying staying. If the choice had really been aligned, I wouldn’t have needed to keep convincing myself.

What stability was really protecting

Instead, I was always explaining myself. I had a reason for everything. It wasn’t practical. It was risky. It wasn’t the right moment. Eventually, I realized how much energy I was spending justifying a decision I claimed to feel good about.

Stability does something important for us. It regulates anxiety. Predictable income, clear roles, and familiar routines create a sense of containment that makes the rest of life possible. They reduce the cognitive and emotional load of uncertainty. When you’re already carrying a lot—children, relationships, aging parents, health, a world that feels increasingly fragile—it makes sense to protect what’s steady. Trust me, I get it.

So when someone says, “I value stability,” I tend to believe them. I value it too.

But here’s the part we often skip over: fear and stability are frequently entangled. And when we don’t separate them, stability can quietly become a cover story for fear—fear of failing, fear of being exposed, fear of discovering that we’re not as capable or competent as we hope we are.

In my case, the paycheck wasn’t just money. It was proof. Proof that I was legitimate. Proof that I hadn’t made a reckless mistake. Proof that I still belonged in a system that knew how to recognize me. Letting go of that wasn’t only a financial decision. It was an identity one.

That’s one reason stuckness can persist for so long. It often protects more than our income. It protects our sense of self and our story about who we are. The version of us that other people understand without explanation.

A few ways to tell the difference

This isn’t about pressuring yourself to make a big shift. It’s about getting more precise.

One thing I pay attention to now is the quality of my reasoning. Does it feel calm and grounded, or repetitive and defensive? Calm reasoning has space in it; defensive reasoning loops and spirals.

I also get specific about what I’m actually protecting. When we say we’re protecting stability, it helps to finish the sentence. Stability of income? Stability of identity? Stability of other people’s expectations? Vagueness tends to keep us stuck.

Time language matters too. Stuckness lives in “someday.” Someday when things settle down. Someday when I feel more confident. Stability usually comes with a clearer horizon: “For the next year, I’m choosing this because…”

And then there’s the shift from abstraction to action. You don’t have to blow anything up to stop being stuck, but you do have to make something concrete. Run the numbers instead of imagining them. Set a decision deadline. Increase your commitment to the thing you say you want, rather than keeping it safely on the side.

Finally, I listen for where I’m outsourcing authority. Am I deferring to a version of “being responsible” that no longer reflects my actual values or life stage? Am I living by a script I inherited rather than one I consciously chose?

Redefining stability

Leaving academia didn’t mean I stopped valuing stability. It meant I redefined it.

Stability, for me now, includes agency and alignment. It includes trusting my ability to build something rather than relying on a single institution to hold me. That version of stability isn’t as neat, but it’s far more honest.

I didn’t leap blindly. I planned, I built a runway, I tolerated discomfort. And yes, there was fear. But fear turned out not to be a signal that I was doing something wrong. It was a signal that I was doing something consequential.

You don’t owe anyone a dramatic reinvention. But you do owe yourself honesty about whether you’re grounded—or just standing still.

Clarity rarely comes from thinking harder. It comes from telling yourself the truth more precisely. And in my experience, that’s often the first real form of stability.