The dilemma I have been a personal assistant for nearly 25 years. It was a role I fell into after university, hoping it would be the first stepping stone to a great career – although this has never happened. Usually, I like being at work and have always been well liked by colleagues, but I’ve never been promoted. Those who are my age are now senior executives or company owners and at nearly 50 I feel a failure for not having made any career progression. I seem to have repeated the same cycle over and over again. I get a new job, I start off doing great and then, after a couple of years, I start making mistakes and fail. Then I either leave or get told to leave and I start all over again, never progressing. I have not grown or learned anything. I feel like I’m about to be asked to leave my current job, which will be inconvenient. I have no idea what my real talents or passions are. I’ll probably get another PA job. Friends say I have had a successful career – mainly because I have worked for clever and successful people in exciting companies. I realise now I choose the companies to make me look cool and not for my actual fulfilment. I always believed every new job I started would change my life – that never happened. My mother was agoraphobic and never worked, my dad was a hard worker, but under her thumb, so I never had any mentoring or direction. I am angry at my parents for this and sad for mourning a work life that never happened and now never will. I cannot see an alternative to this. Philippa’s answer At base level we all need security, so change is a scary thing to contemplate, but it sounds as though you are ready to do just that. After a while, you may find PA work can be dull and when boredom kicks in, you seem to make mistakes. It sounds as if you are imprisoned in a work pattern that you have created for yourself in exchange for job security, and you hate it so much that you unconsciously make mistakes to get out, only to fall back into it again. Split in two, you are fed up with being a PA yet you don’t, for practical reasons, want to lose your job. How long will you continue to fight yourself like this? Have you ever seen a career coach? These people are not just for high-up executives but for anyone who wants to progress and feels stuck. Choose someone online or get a recommendation from a friend. You need the mentor you feel you have never had, who will challenge you and help you break this pattern – the person who can help you discover what it is you really want to do and what you have to offer. Ask them how they will do this, how they can help you shift your mindset and get you out of the work jail you have imprisoned yourself in. Listen to how they work and if it is in a way you could embrace, then get on board with it. Don’t ever think that it’s too difficult to switch careers or too late – gloomy beliefs have a habit of becoming self-fulling prophecies. A career coach will show you how to get unstuck. They won’t do the networking or searching or applying for you, but they can help you work out your priorities and nurture your courage and enthusiasm, so you can do those things for yourself. It isn’t useful to blame your lack of advancement on how your parents managed their lives. If you hold on to this victim mindset it will be another thing holding you back. Introjects about how the world is a scary place can be overcome. Imposter syndrome can be beaten. No more blaming, it just doesn’t help. Do one thing every day to bring about the change you want to see in your life, and don’t do it alone. Get that coach, read self-help books about midlife career changes, talk to friends about their work, ask them to introduce you to people who may be able to help. Plant one seed on stony ground and you’ll not grow a fruit tree or collect any fruit. Scatter seeds far and wide on many types of soil and you increase your chances of germinating that seed, growing that tree and collecting that fruit. It seems that your work life just happened to you, as though you are stuck in passive mode. It is time to be proactive and take control of your career. Rarely do we get what we want on a plate. We must search for it, ask for it, reach for it and go for it. I often say this: get behind the wheel and steer your own life, rather than being driven around in the back seat. “Where your talents and the world’s needs cross, there lies your calling.” Wise words attributed to Dr Marcus Bach at a graduation ceremony in 1954. Suggested read: How Women Rise by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith.