Public Health SPOTlight Podcast
Sujani Sivanantharajah, the founder of PHSPOT.org sits down with public health heroes of our time to share career stories, inspiration, and guidance for building public health careers.
The message she hopes to share through these conversations is that building a career is not only about climbing up the ranks, but about crafting a life that you want, around your unique needs, and one that gives importance to your mental health, wellbeing, and building relationships and friendships: you can only do good in the world if you take care of yourself.
Through PH SPOTlight, you will connect with peers you have never met before, and build relationships in a deep and meaningful way.
Public Health SPOTlight Podcast
Navigating Career Plateaus: What to Do When You Feel Stuck
Tell us what you thought of this episode - send us a text!
Career plateaus in public health are common experiences that leave professionals feeling stuck and unmotivated, but with reflection and strategic action, they can become springboards for renewed passion and growth.
What's discussed in this episode:
- Four main reasons career plateaus happen: outgrowing your current role, lacking career clarity, not seeing growth opportunities, and experiencing burnout
- Ask yourself key questions to recognize if you're in a plateau: Am I growing? Am I being challenged? Am I excited about my work? Do I feel clear about my future?
- Reassess your career goals by considering how your interests may have changed since entering the field
- Expand your skill set through courses or certifications that align with areas you're curious about
- Seek guidance from mentors or career coaches who can provide perspective and help change your mindset
- Network beyond your organization to discover new opportunities and paths within public health
- Make small career moves like taking on new projects, volunteering, or applying for short-term consulting roles
- Reconnect with your "why" – the values and motivations that initially drew you to public health
- Attend conferences to meet like-minded professionals and immerse yourself in the energy of the field
- Develop a passion project related to public health to channel creativity and reignite enthusiasm
Choose one action step from today's episode and commit to doing it this week.
Share your experience or thoughts on LinkedIn or through the podcast feedback feature.
Remember – don't navigate career plateaus alone, and be patient and kind to yourself through the process.
Join The Public Health Career Club: A global membership community where public health professionals connect, learn, and support each other in building meaningful and impactful careers.
Go from feeling confused, alone and overwhelmed, to feeling confident and in control of your life and career!
Welcome to PHSpotlight, a community for you to build your public health career with. Join us weekly right here, and I'll be here too, your host, sujani Siva from PHSpot. Hello and welcome to another episode of the PHSpot podcast. This is a place where we share stories, inspiration and guidance to help you build your dream public health career. And this is Sujani, your host.
Speaker 1:And today we're going to talk about something that many professionals experience, including myself, but sometimes I don't have the words to talk about it, or maybe we just don't feel like anyone's going to understand, and that's the topic of career plateaus. And so this is that feeling of just feeling stuck in your public health career, right, so maybe you've been in the same role for years and you don't see a path forward. Or maybe you've applied to new opportunities because you feel that sense of like wanting to do something new, but then you keep hitting a wall, and this feeling of stagnation can often bring a lot of frustration and even possibly kind of like feeling discouraged, right, and I want you to know that you are not alone and, more importantly, you won't be stuck forever. So this is something that I've felt, I think, in the past year or two, and I can't confidently say that I've kind of navigated past this feeling of feeling stuck essentially, but I'm working towards it and I wanted to share that just to give you a sense of perhaps you know the length of time that you may be in this period. It's not something that I think you can figure out overnight. It definitely requires a lot of work on your end but also a lot of patience and kindness and grace. So just wanted to start off with that. So in today's episode we're going to break down this idea of a career plateau by talking about why they exist, how you can maybe recognize the signs that you are potentially in this period of feeling stuck, actionable steps that you can take to break free and move forward, and then also how to reignite your passion for the work that you're doing right. So by the end of this episode I really hope that you can walk away with a clear action plan to navigate this stage of your career and just feel like you have a lot of confidence and that you have a plan right and know that it's not going to like the plan's not going to be something that you implement overnight and then boom, you're out of that feeling of feeling stuck essentially. So grab a notebook, settle in and let's get started.
Speaker 1:So let's start by talking about why career plateaus happen in our careers, in public health, and you know, I bet, that if you're feeling stuck, there's probably a reason behind it, right? And from talking to different individuals in our community mentoring and even kind of my own personal experience often I think the reason falls into one of these categories. The reason falls into one of these categories. Number one you've outgrown your current role, so you feel like you're doing the same work over and over again, without new challenges. You maybe feel like you could do your job in your sleep, right? It's just this repetitive thing and you're not learning anything new, and so you are just going through the motion and it's just not challenging. So, essentially, you've outgrown your current role. That could be a reason. The second reason could be that you're lacking career clarity, so you're unsure about what's next for you. You've tried looking at other job posting, but nothing is really exciting. You, you've tried looking at other job posting, but nothing is really exciting. You, and you feel unmotivated, even though you once really loved this work. Right? I know, for me, the reason I even started PH Spot was because I was in this area of lacking clarity and I didn't know what was next for me, and so ph spot essentially became a channel through which I was able to find answers for myself and other people that were kind of experiencing the same thing and really look for advice and support and create a community. So it's something that I've felt very early on in my career and I think it's something that I've felt at different periods of the past 12 years of my public health career. So that's number two.
Speaker 1:Number three is maybe a little bit related to number one and two. It's that you're not seeing any growth opportunities right? So you're in this role at an organization and there's really no room for promotion in your current job and you've tried taking on more responsibilities but it's really not leading you anywhere and maybe you feel like your skills aren't being valued or recognized, feel like your skills aren't being valued or recognized. So it's really about not seeing any growth at this current organization or this current role. Number four could be burnout and lack of motivation. That could be another reason that you're experiencing this career plateau. So you are feeling mentally drained from your work. You're no longer excited about public health, for whatever reason. You know everything that's happening in the news, just feeling defeated, and so every day just kind of feels like another day at work and nothing's really inspiring you, because maybe it's just frustration over frustration or being overworked and being kind of like burnt out in your role, right.
Speaker 1:So these are kind of four reasons that I think individuals, myself included might experience a career plateau. And the good news is we can break out of it, right, and we're going to talk about that. But kind of just recognizing that you know other people definitely go through it these could be potentially some reasons that you are experiencing it, and maybe even just identifying which of these reasons kind of align with your current situation will be helpful, okay, so next we're going to talk about how to recognize the signs of a career plateau, and so I want you to take a moment to maybe do a little bit of a reflection, because career plateaus don't always feel obvious right away. So I remember for myself, um, kind of five years, four or five years into my first public health job, one that you know I absolutely loved, learned so much, was excited about Um, but after kind of four years I did feel myself a little bit more anxious and wanting a wanting something different, wanting something more, a little bit more anxious and wanting something different, wanting something more. And so I think, identifying those feelings, how your body is feeling, it's really helpful for you to take the next step.
Speaker 1:So what you can do is maybe ask yourself some of these questions to really help you figure things out right. So here are four questions that you can ask. First one is do I feel like I'm growing in my career right now? Number two am I learning new skills or being challenged? Number three do I feel excited about my work? Maybe, at least like some of the time right, and when I think about my future in public health, do I feel clear and hopeful? And if you answered no to most of these questions, it's probably time that you took action, because you probably don't want to remain in this state.
Speaker 1:We want to work on ourselves, we want to figure out an actual plan and we want to move past this phase, this period, and we really like break free from this, like plateau that we're feeling. So you know you're feeling stuck and now you're like okay, I've identified that I am in this phase and these are the things that I'm feeling. Now you want to commit to getting unstuck essentially right, and we'll go through five strategies that I've kind of used and I'm currently using to help me navigate this period. The first one is to reassess your career goals. Have your career interests changed since you first started? Maybe you entered public health thinking you wanted to work in epidemiology. But now, having worked in the field of epidemiology, you've also been exposed to a little bit of health policy and you're realizing that there's a little bit of excitement that you feel whenever you get to provide input in those pieces of work. So take the time to reflect at this phase of your current career, where do you want to go next?
Speaker 1:And I found that for me I was working as an epidemiologist for several years probably about seven years and at that point I made a conscious decision that I no longer wanted to proceed as an epidemiologist. I couldn't see myself kind of developing additional skills and becoming an expert as an epidemiologist and I wanted to take a different path for my career, path for my career. So about at the seven year mark I did make that conscious decision and I tried a different area of work in the same organization. So that was kind of my first point in assessing like was the thing that excited me seven years ago or, you know, nine years ago when I started grad school. Still exciting me now? And at that point it was no. And then, interestingly enough, when I went on maternity leave, so I think that was at the 10 year mark.
Speaker 1:That was another moment of realization and I think I'm still in that phase of trying to figure out what is my current interest. Because what I'm still in that phase of trying to figure out what is my current interest, because what I'm realizing is that I was, and have been chasing a lot of the goals that I had put down for myself when I first started off in public health almost 12 years ago. I started grad school in 2011 and it's 2025, and I hadn't realized that all the goals and kind of like things I was aiming for and trying to achieve were all based on that. You know, 20 something year old me, and I'm realizing now that you know, maybe the reason that I'm not getting excited about them at the moment is because they are no longer aligned with the me of now, like 2025. A lot of things have changed from then to now, like I've moved so many times, um, I've gotten married, I've become a mother. So many things have changed in my life. I've moved so many times, I've gotten married, I've become a mother. So many things have changed in my life I've kind of like matured.
Speaker 1:So I think it's a really good time, if you're feeling that career plateau, to reassess your career goals and think about your career interests and where it is at this point in time you would like to go, right? So maybe one thing you can do is write down three roles or fields that interest you and then start researching them. Right, talking to people about it, reading about it. We have about 160 odd episodes on the podcast. Many of them are interviews with other public health professionals. We have a blog where individuals have submitted their career reflections. So search those up and see if you can learn a little bit more about these different areas. So that's kind of action.
Speaker 1:Number one, right, reassessing your career goal. Number two is to expand your skill set, right? So sometimes plateaus happen because you need a new challenge, right? So maybe there's a new technical skill like data visualization or health economics or policy analysis that you'd like to develop because you see that it keeps coming up in your work, right? So maybe you're doing your work, and every time there's a data visualization need, you feel frustrated because you can't do it yourself and it is something that you would enjoy doing, and so it's often a piece of work that you're outsourcing to another colleague. So maybe it's time for you to expand your skill set right, so you could do this through short online courses or certifications that align with your interest. Often organizations will have some career development funds that you can use towards this, but there are also lots of free resources online, so expanding your skill set is another way to kind of breaking out of that feeling of feeling stuck right.
Speaker 1:So, for me, another realization I had was that since grad school, I had not personally invested in kind of traditional learning or consciously taken a course to help me develop a new skill. I've been working on strengthening existing skills, but there has been nothing new that I have picked up or committed to learning through some sort of like a course or certification, and I realized that a lot of the strengthening of skills that I've been doing have been on the job or they've been through like mentorship and nothing more of like a formal process, and so something that I am hoping to do in the year this year is to kind of think about going back to number one, like reflecting a little bit more about what is a new skill set that I would like to develop that's going to help me in my career and kind of like the future of my career, right. So the second one is to think about like are there any skill sets that you would like to develop and kind of like expand on that to develop and kind of like expand on that. Number three is to seek out a mentor or a career coach, because sometimes when we're stuck right, we can only see a certain way, right. So having a mentor or some sort of a coach help you change that mindset, reframe some of the things that you're saying to yourself can really give you clarity and perspective on your next steps, hidden strengths and opportunities and essentially put you on a path to doing like more reflection and taking more action. And it's just you need somebody that kind of understands you and your field to help you like get unstuck.
Speaker 1:So imagine you're like in this, like really gooey mud, and your feet are just stuck in there and you're like giving up giving up because you've tried everything and then somebody gives you a hand and they just like pull you out a little bit and then you're like back on and you're able to kind of navigate through your path right. So I want you to seriously consider reaching out, talking to somebody, because what I've realized I do a lot of one-on-one mentorship inside the PHSpot community is that a lot of individuals will come to me to say like I haven't found a job or I don't know where to go next, and I don't necessarily need to give them the answer Like I don't need to give them what exactly their next step should be, nor do I need to find them a job but I just need to ask them a few questions, give them some ideas and you know, within like 30 minutes I see a completely different excitement that they have, because they just feel like somebody's pulled them out of that like really icky mud and they feel like they can get back onto the path and kind of like continue navigating through this journey. So talking to a mentor or coach somebody will really help you get unstuck. So, as an action step, reach out to somebody in your network who could offer career guidance, because it's really going to help you and for me, I think one of the most like of the most like pivotal moments. That has helped me in these past two or so years I think it's a little bit more than two years where I've been feeling a bit stuck, has been going to like this workshop where we had to do a lot of self reflection about ourselves and where we are in our lives, and then also speaking to a career coach. I think those two combined I could say those have been some pivotal moments in my journey of getting a little bit unstuck. That has helped me and that has kind of given me these aha moments like, oh okay, yes, I get why I've been kind of thinking this way and this person has helped me think a different way and that has kind of opened up some possibilities in my head, right.
Speaker 1:So, number three seek out some sort of mentorship or coaching support. Reach out to people in your community, in your network. If you feel like you don't have one, come join the PH Spot community. We have a membership community called the Public Health Career Club. We do anything from like workshops and talks, but we also have office hours where you can drop in with our wonderful, wonderful, wonderful mentors who are able to help you through just getting unstuck answering some questions, and then we also have one-on-one mentorship where you can book some time with our mentors and talk to them about your specific problem, and we have like social hours so you can talk to your peers. So just a wonderful community where you can get this kind of support.
Speaker 1:Number four, with kind of actionable steps to getting unstuck, is to network and explore new opportunities. Often we can feel like we're stuck because we're only looking inside our current workplace for new opportunities or to find some inspiration. But if you can step outside your current bubble and talk to new people, people in different areas of public health there may be roles or areas of work that you haven't even considered yet, right? So I think if you can meet people who are doing completely different work, just to have a friendly conversation, to understand you know what it is they've done, how have they navigated their career it'll often give you a little bit more like inspiration, motivation to be like okay, like you know, they've done something pretty cool with a similar, with like similar experience as me. It just gives you those possibilities and if you're feeling shy, to kind of like reach out to people at this moment, the podcast, like I mentioned, has wonderful interviews with other public health individuals and if you can just listen to a few of those and get a little bit more excited, maybe that'll give you a bit more confidence to reach out. And what I want you to do is set up informational interviews, and so these are essentially short calls with individuals just to ask them about their career journey. And so set some sort of a goal for yourself, like maybe you want to talk to one new person every month who works in a field that you're just curious about and think creatively. Right, don't just stick to your organization or your city. Reach out to people around the world. The goal here is to really help you one network, build your relationships, explore what's possible out there and then also reignite that passion I know for me, when I do these podcast episodes and I interview guests on the podcast, I feel like I am like vicariously living that life and I'm able to get re excited and and feel like there's different opportunities for me to like explore.
Speaker 1:A quick story I'll tell you. I was mentoring somebody yesterday through our one-on-one mentorship session and she has a background in, like, public health inspection. So a lot of the opportunities she was looking for were the traditional public health inspector role in local health units, and so when we got talking we were able to brainstorm other areas that she could use her expertise, right. So we have the hospitality industry. So they often will hire infection prevention type professionals to ensure that hotels or cruises are up to standard. That, like, hotels or cruises are up to standard. Even I think I recently saw a manager of public health role at Disney or nursing homes, right.
Speaker 1:So you kind of are, when you talk to other people, you're able to expand on the opportunities that exist for you, on the opportunities that exist for you, and that reignites that passion because, um, you've just been stuck in this like maybe one box that you you thought of. Okay, so that was number four. Number five, um, is a big one and it's to make a small career move, um, and I want to say that, like you don't have to switch jobs overnight. That's not the main point here. A small career move can look like taking on a new project at work. So talk to your manager, your supervisor, whoever you're reporting to, and kind of explain to them that you are wanting a new challenge, right? So tell them. You know I'm able to complete my work and I am doing an exceptional job, but I really also want to develop my skills in data visualization, maybe right. So is it possible for me to take on this new project I heard you talk about and perhaps support the lead so that I could develop this new skill set? So talk to your manager about that.
Speaker 1:Another way to make a small career move is to volunteer in a different area of public health. So if you've been working more on like research or like really high level stuff, and you really like to be part of community initiatives, community outreach, perhaps there's a local not-for-profit organization that you could go and work once a week for a couple of hours to do some community engagement activities, and that will also help you develop some new skills but also reignite that passion that you had for public health. Another thing you could do if you have a little bit more time is to apply for short-term consulting roles. Right, there are RFPs, so these are requests for proposals that organizations will put out when they need a consultant to do a small project within a predetermined time frame, and so perhaps you could apply to one of those and do a short term consulting role. You know, the bonus here is you are developing new skills. You're, you know building up something for yourself and you're going to get paid too, and you know adding a little bit more to your salary is probably one of the something that doesn't hurt. And so you know RFPs are one way to take on short term consulting roles.
Speaker 1:But you can also reach out to maybe past organizations you've been part of past colleagues, maybe within other organizations and just pitch the idea, say, hey, you know I am great at data analysis and if there's any work that your organization needs done this year, I am available and these are my rates and I'd love to chat more. If you do have some opportunities, that's one way to do it. Another way to do is reach out to other consulting kind of small business consultants in the public health space and see if they want to outsource some of their work and subcontract out to you. So different ways for you to make these small career moves without completely changing your job. Especially in, I think, the current market right now, with all the instability, the funding cuts, if you have a role that's stable, it's paying your bills, you're getting income, it's probably a good idea to kind of find other creative ways to advance in your career and I think those could look like a small project at work, volunteering or short term consulting roles. So, with this kind of strategy, I want you to identify one small move that you can make in the next 30 days and commit to that and see where that takes you.
Speaker 1:Okay, so the final thing I want to talk about. So we talked about why career plateaus happen in public health. Then we talked about how to recognize the signs that you're currently experiencing that, and then I gave you kind of five actionable steps to break free and kind of move forward so you're not stuck in this feeling, right. And now we're going to talk about how to reignite your passion for your work. I think that the five strategies that we just talked about, kind of those actionable steps of reassessing your career goals, expanding your skill set, seeking out a mentor, career coach, networking and exploring new opportunities, and then making these small career moves, those are definitely going to give you some motivation and it's going to give you some excitement and reignite that passion. But I think what you can do is do some intentional reflecting and intentional actions around reigniting that passion for your work, right?
Speaker 1:So, if you like, we chose this field public health because there was some sort of a connection to it, right, and we love this field, we're able to have great impact. But when we think about the work that we're in, that we're kind of like physically doing, we're just not feeling inspired anymore, and you know when that happens, it's important to reconnect with why you started. Right, like, why did you choose this field amongst all the other fields out there? And what is it about this field that kind of pulled you into it and got you to invest all of these years and time and money into a degree? Right, so revisit your public health. Why, like, what made you enter this field?
Speaker 1:For me, like I talk about it, I think, in some of my newsletters and content that I post on LinkedIn, I think for me it's. It was. I think I didn't identify it at first when I first chose this field, but there was something about the way we had impact at, like, these massive, large population levels that really connected with my values and I and I didn't understand that till very recently when I was doing these reflections um, that I have a certain set of values, right, and so when those values aligned with the work and the impact I was having, um, I knew that it was a really good fit for me, like this area of work, because I couldn't see myself getting excited about working I don't know at Uber, for example, or like a company where the end goal is to deliver on something, but I have no personal like attachment, connection or motivation for that final goal here. With public health, I know that the vision and that final goal objective of any role in public health is to ensure that human beings live a healthy life and they're able to exist in this world and have everything they've ever dreamed of, and I think the the foundation of that is good health, and so that's a vision, that's an idea that I can get, get behind, I can get motivated by, and so sometimes when we're in these roles as I'm a health economist or I'm a policy analyst we might lose sight of that connection back to us, like ourselves and why we chose this field. So take some time to maybe revisit that. Why take some time to maybe revisit that? Why and in my experience it has taken more than one session to do that reflection and you kind of have to do it over and over again. It's not something that you do once and you forget about it right. So that's one way to reignite your passion for your work. Another one goes back to that networking piece, but what you can do as like a specific action step is to attend public health conferences large ones, small ones, whatever size and meet like-minded people. Like the in-person connection with individuals in a space where it's just buzzing with that energy of this space that we're all collectively in is going to reignite your passion for sure. Right like hands down, you get a room full of like public health professionals talking about, um, the work they're doing, the impact it's having on the world. That's definitely going to like really re-energize you. Um.
Speaker 1:Another one that's kind of like my favorite and something that I really, really, really believe in is to work on a passion project that excites you. For me, it's PH Spot. This is my passion project. It's's uh grown over the past eight years to what it is today. I would not have imagined it to be this big. It started off as a small blog and newsletter. It was a passion project, um that I did on the weekends and evenings and still do these on the weekends and evenings, um, and now we have a team of you know, three other individuals who are helping me with PH spot, and it's something that, um, when things aren't going as as planned or I'm feeling stuck in other areas of my life, it is a area that I can come to and reignite that passion. But that's not to say that sometimes, you know, ph spot ends up, that they ends up being the thing that burns me out or that I really need to take a break from because it's it's just like too much work for me. So it's not to say that your passion project is going to be perfect, but it is a way for you to be creative, a channel for you to reignite your passion.
Speaker 1:So, you know, I've seen anywhere from launching a podcast, maybe launching a YouTube channel about talking about a topic that you're interested in. Maybe written format is your way of kind of communicating. You can choose that. Some other ideas include maybe writing a book. I know a couple people who have written books with their public health backgrounds. So just lots of ideas, and so maybe starting this passion project is what's going to reignite your passion for your work. I will put in a plug here to say that inside the membership community, I recently launched a four part workshop series titled Launch your Idea, and so we just had our first workshop, talking about like more like introductory stuff, about launching an idea, and then we're going to have, uh, different office hours and work sessions to um, help people inside the community who are interested in launching an idea to um. I think it's like by mid-april to may, you're going to have your idea out in the world. So that's my goal to help people. So, if that sounds interesting, definitely join me inside the Public Health Career Club, phspotorg slash club should give you all the information you need. But, yeah, you know, reigniting your passion for your work is kind of the final thing I wanted to talk about.
Speaker 1:Talk about, so, to recap today's episode on, like career plateaus and navigating that period of your life and getting unstuck, know that career plateaus happen, right. So we all go through them, like every single person probably has gone through it many times but know that they are temporary. You need to identify why it is that you're feeling stuck. Is it a lack of challenge, is it a lack of clarity or is it a lack of opportunity? Right? So get clear on why it is that you're feeling stuck.
Speaker 1:Next, you need to commit to taking action. So you got to set some new career goals, Um, you got to expand on your skills and you got to get support. Don't do this alone, okay, um. And then we want to like reignite our passion. So there are many ways that you can do that. Um, and I gave you a few ways to get excited and and um, and ignite that passion again for your career. So that was a lot that we talked about.
Speaker 1:I want to challenge you to choose one action step from today's episode and to commit to doing it this week. Okay, and tell me about it. So, either me on linkedin um, I think if you're listening to this episode on spotify or other uh platforms, there's a new cool feature that I just enabled where you can actually like, text us right on the episode, um, any feedback that you have. So try that out and I'll see if I, if it comes up, um us on our end. And if you found this episode helpful, share it with a friend, share it on your socials, share it with a colleague, because they might be feeling stuck too, and it's a great way to bond with your colleagues and friends and kind of help each other through it.
Speaker 1:Remember, don't do it alone, do it with the community, do it with a group of people and don't forget to subscribe so that you never miss an episode, and just want to say thank you for tuning in to another episode of the PH Spotlight podcast. Until next time, keep growing, keep making an impact. And I just want to say thank you for all the work that you're doing in public health. We do amazing work, but sometimes we also need help. So I think it's an excellent area to be in and it's okay to feel stuck, because we'll definitely navigate it. We're smart people and we'll get through it. Just be kind to yourself and have some patience and you will get through it with some action.