When career doubt isn’t about you: It’s the environment you’re working in
Many professionals spend a surprising amount of energy at work trying to work out what’s acceptable instead of doing good work.
“What can I say here?”
“What’s safer to hold back?”
“Who do I need to stay aligned with?”
When these questions dominate, self-protection replaces contribution. People become careful rather than curious. Instead of feeling stretched or developed, they feel compromised.
As a coaching psychologist, I often meet capable professionals who are questioning themselves. Questioning their confidence, resilience, or career decisions and assuming the problem lies with them. Very often, it doesn’t.
When people personalise what’s structural
In unhealthy organisational cultures, questioning the system can feel risky. Feedback may be inconsistent, decision-making unclear, and success criteria vague or politicised. In these environments, people learn to adapt rather than challenge.
So instead of asking:
Why is it hard to speak openly here?
Why does visibility matter more than substance?
Why don’t stated values match lived behaviour?
They ask:
What’s wrong with me?
Why can’t I cope better?
Maybe I’ve made the wrong career choices.
Research on psychological safety (Edmondson) shows that when people don’t feel safe to take interpersonal risks, they reduce contribution and increase self-monitoring. Individuals can often absorb anxiety generated by the wider organisation and experience it as personal inadequacy.
Career uncertainty as a signal
Many career doubts are not signs of weakness or poor judgment. They are often healthy responses to constraining environments.
A role can look right on paper yet feel wrong in practice if the culture demands constant self-censorship, emotional vigilance, or values compromise. Over time, confidence and energy erode. Not because capability is lacking, but because so much effort goes into managing the environment.
Seen this way, career uncertainty becomes information, not failure.
Before you plan an exit
When people come to coaching feeling stuck or desperate to leave, the starting point is rarely immediate exit planning.
Instead, it's useful to separate three things that are often tangled together:
the role
the environment
you, as a professional
This distinction matters. Without it, people risk carrying the same internal story - “the problem is me” - into the next organisation, even if the next culture is healthier.
Sometimes the role is wrong.
Sometimes the culture is the issue.
Sometimes both need to change.
Clarity comes from understanding where the problem is coming from, rather than assuming it all belongs to you.
Questions that restore perspective
If you’re feeling diminished, stuck, or unusually self-doubting at work, it may help to ask:
What does this environment require of me to succeed or belong?
What parts of myself have I had to hold back or protect?
Is this stretching me... or slowly narrowing me?
These questions shift the focus from self-criticism to clearer attribution.
How career coaching can help
Career coaching grounded in psychology is all about creating space to think clearly again, separating identity from circumstance and making choices from understanding rather than depletion.
If you’re seeking direction in your career, questioning your next move, or if you’re unsure whether your doubts are about you or your work environment, coaching support can help you regain clarity.
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