When the Door Hasn't Opened Yet: Coping with Feeling Trapped in Your Job
By Dr. Jackie Layton
First, a note about this series:
This is part of a series of posts I am writing about challenges that clients are bringing in right now as we face tough job markets, changing national policies, upward wealth redistribution, and collective stressors impacting our felt safety and security.
Mental health is so often not just an individual concern but a social and systemic one. I hope this post will be helpful for both the lovely clients I get to work with who inspired it, and for anyone else who can resonate with this stuck feeling.
There’s a sort of emotional heaviness and grief in being stuck somewhere you had already decided to leave.
Maybe you’ve realized that you cannot stay where you are but have to wait a few more months before you are able to transfer without consequence in your company. Maybe you’re a professor who applied for positions at other institutions, didn’t land your dream role, and now you’re back in the same spot, waiting for next season’s job cycle to open.
Maybe you had a plan to leave your job and then something shifted (e.g., a health diagnosis, financial setback). Maybe you planned to return only temporarily, but have had to keep extending the temporary.
I’ve also heard this feeling come up for service members whose deployment was extended without warning. As well as when working with people who had to push back their retirement.
The reasons and specific contexts change, but that feeling – that stuck, trapped, disappointed, frustrated feeling – is something we share.
You aren’t stuck in this spot because you are passive, unambitious, or unworthy of better fitting work. As a matter of fact, most of the folks I see had plans, took some form of action, and still found themselves without a way out, at least for now. The delay, though, can feel so oppressive.
From a psychological standpoint, we know how real the impact can be from feeling trapped. Some describe feeling a loss of autonomy or control over an important part of your future and reality, which is fair honestly. Work takes up so much of our day and energy. When we realize we’re ready to leave and then face delays, it can make the small indignities of a workplace or signs of personal misfit feel so much louder. You may find it’s harder to motivate yourself, go through the motions of your routine, or keep your mind from wandering back to that closed door.
So what do we do with this?
Many clients share that someone in their life told them to be grateful they even have a job. I want to name what that really is - we have all been inundated with messages from our extractive capitalist system that any work is better than no work, because we need money to survive. However, please keep in mind that owning class in this country are also the ones who have funded and pushed policies that deny us a safety net. They don’t just use our lack of security to justify why we should accept less than satisfactory work - they created those conditions. They funded policies that made us the only wealth nation in the US to deny the populace universal access to childcare and healthcare. They created a system where we have to work for them to survive. So no, we do not have to feel grateful to have a dissatisfying or unhealthy job simply because it pays something.
I don’t recommend dismissing your feelings, telling yourself to just be grateful for what you have, or white knuckling it until the door opens. We can do better than that for ourselves. We deserve better than that.
As a note, these are options for helping you cope with and maybe even make strategic use of the extended time you have in your current job or situation. This is not meant to replace efforts to leave, make changes, or find new roles. You wanted a change and still deserve a change. This is just how we are keeping your mental gas tank full along the journey.
First, invest in purposeful, valued action.
Being trapped or stuck in a job can create this overall feeling of stagnation. You see yourself back at the same work and feel like nothing is moving or changing.
There are several ways to grow hopelessness. Making efforts and still not seeing progress can contribute, just as seeing problems and not making efforts can contribute. You may have just observed yourself make sincere efforts without seeing the benefits of achieving actual change. So what does that mean for you? Purposeful action. The antidote is in finding ways to see yourself doing and achieving things, even within your current limits.
This can be personalized to you. I will often break down my clients’ interests, hobbies, passions, and deep beliefs to find ideas for what specifically they may want to do. This can look like advocating for a project you actually care about, or finally joining that committee, working group, or professional network you’ve been meaning to join. It could mean connecting with people and organizations working on issues you care about such as social justice, equity in your field, or changes happening in our society that may even be contributing to why work and the job search are posing greater challenges for you right now.
Some of the lovely folks I have worked with have joined Resistance Groups, taken a more active role in advocating for moms in the workplace or women in leadership, or initiated support circles among their colleagues. These sorts of efforts can help you feel like even though you are staying (for now), you can do so on your own terms and with greater social support.
Some of my clients would rather not put in their purposeful effort at work. One of the ways to approach your remaining time on your own terms can be to choose how much of your attention, energy, and care this workplace gets. Some therefore channel energy into community outside of work. During periods of professional stuckness, the people who weather it best often do so because they are rooted somewhere else (e.g., a cause, community, or a set of values they are actively living out). This helps work feel like it takes up less space psychologically in our life in this chapter. That too can be a small form of getting emotional distance from the job even before you succeed in truly leaving.
With whom might you feel a sense of community and camaraderie? This could be a gaming community, a D&D group that meets at a local bookshop, a dog rescue volunteer group, a Star Trek philosophy group, or even organizing a recurring neighborhood potluck/barbeque.
You can cultivate feelings of hope, power, and control in your life again by putting your efforts intentionally back into yourself and your life. If work can’t be a place for you to grow and thrive, maybe it’s time to put more of your focus and effort into your creative life, your parenting, your community involvement, or your health. Focus on other values and aspects of your identity in more active and intentional ways. Feel free to use PTO if you have any for self-care and reclaiming things you enjoy. You get to refuse to let work be everything.
Second, reclaim joy and whimsy.
When I mention purpose or feeding our values, I rarely get pushback. Yet, when I mention joy and whimsy, clients often respond with a knee-jerk reaction that they don’t have time for that. What has happened in our society that we have accepted the idea that play - something so truly human - something fundamental to how we learn and connect - is a luxury?
We will not let them steal your whimsy. Let’s talk about daily pleasures and micro-rebellions. There other ways to free yourself (or “remember you have free will”) that can reduce this stuck-trapped feeling in another way.
This is where I ask folks about ways to make their actual workdays a little more pleasant. This doesn’t have to be transformative and again this is not about getting us to be “okay with staying.” We are simply allowing ourselves some joy while we continue to make strategic efforts to get ourselves to a better situation. This could mean taking lunchtime walks outside for some sun, movement, and mini breaks away from the workplace. It could also mean making genuinely delightful lunches and snacks with you and experimenting with new recipes. It can mean listening to nostalgic music while working if you can. It could also mean protecting time or breaks to catch up with a colleague you like or a virtual break with a friend who works somewhere else entirely. No one said your work friends or work group chat have to all work for the same company. There’s relief in enjoying a little solidarity and chatting during those meetings-that-should-have-been-emails.
This can also mean bringing in literal play and games. Someone I worked with previously brought supplies to their office and organized ping pong tournaments between meetings. It was absurd and not technically against the rules. Are there ways to “gamify” what you are doing at your job?
It can be helpful to consider options for micro-rebellion or breaking norms in ways that feel good. This could be anything from decorating your space with plants in unhinged little planters, to starting a creative project or side interest that is fully yours. It could mean starting a new hobby (maybe even with some of your coworkers). I’ve seen folks start book clubs, random workplace contests, or create increasingly whimsical backgrounds for their zoom meetings. These things sound small but they are also ways to make little acts of reclamation.
Third, you can keep building towards your exit with lots of self compassion.
This post is not about helping you feel just better enough to accept where you are. The first two points are about reclaiming morale from that trapped or hopelessness feeling. They are about reminding ourselves that work only gets to claim so much of our time and attention. Connecting with purpose and joy helps ease the stakes just enough that we can then paradoxically can have more success in our job-search-strategy.
Keep following your plan. And if you don’t have a plan, try to create one where you can break down your overall journey into helpful steps. If you are feeling overwhelmed, you can ask a loved one to help you (in part because it brings in actual human support) or you can also bring in Claude or an AI tool. Look for things you can complete now while still at this job. Is there a training or certification you can take while at this job?
Another great way to spend this time is by diving into informational interviews. These are informal conversations with people who are doing work in your field that you find interesting. You can offer to treat them to lunch or coffee, schedule a video call, or meet up in some way to pick their brain and ask about their journey. This is not about asking about job offers so much as building relationships and getting insights. However, many people do find that these are the people who know about positions that have not yet been posted publicly. So many jobs are created for and filled with people the hiring organization knows through networking, rather than a public post open to everyone. In terms of morale as well, keeping up with professional relationships can also be a source of connection, community, and give you opportunities to nerd out about the things you are passionate about in your field or mission.
You may also want to focus on growing your visibility within your field. This could mean creating or contributing to content that explores deeper ideas in your field. Many people enjoy posting and guest posting on Substack to connect and grow visibility. Others enjoy attending niche conferences and talking with fellow professionals there. You may even consider presenting and putting yourself out there in that way while also contributing to awareness and dialogue around something meaningful to you. These are the more indirect, slow growing steps that are such an important part of reaching opportunities in our fields, but also tend to be more approachable to do while we are still earning a paycheck.
Fourth, give yourself permission to rest and care for your health.
Being trapped is exhausting. This can be a vulnerability factor that accelerates burnout or contributes to pain and fatigue through chronic stress. The incongruence of being in a job or situation you don’t like for longer can impact your mood, sleep, and wellbeing. This is a great time to intentionally reclaim some of your own time and effort to put towards your rest and health instead. What would it look like to tend to your bodily needs, improve your sleep, or care for your nervous system with little efforts throughout the day?
You may not be able to leave the job yet, but you could change how you are approaching it. You can experiment with how to approach work and work boundaries in different and healthy ways. What are some mindfulness exercises you may want to try throughout the day? Or perhaps ways you can practice communicating new boundaries around personal time or rest or breaks? While you’re sitting in place here, maybe you can use this as an experimental time for trying new health activities. This can be anything from doing stretches throughout the day, changing your routine to improve hydration, taking walks, or practicing mindfulness before or after challenging tasks or meetings. This is not only a way of caring for yourself during a hard time, but is another way you are making changes within the current constraints. You are not yet changing where you work, but you can still change how you work.
This can also mean taking your PTO and using that for rest, nature, travel, events, concerts, and long weekends. PTO can help you refresh your energy throughout this period. It can help you again feel that some parts of your life do not have to be on hold while you are working towards the new job position. It can mean actually protecting your breaks and time off the clock.
Protecting your rest is not only important because you are a human and we humans need rest. It’s also a way to conserve energy at your current job so that when you eventually start your new opportunity, you are not going into it feeling as exhausted and drained. We don’t have to let this job steal from our next job through burnout.
Fifth, remember it’s not just you.
You are not the only one stuck-but-still-functioning in your job. I say this not to diminish how much it sucks but to remind you that you are not alone, not wrong to feel this way, and that this is not a reflection on you personally. The job hunt can itself feel like another full-time job layered on top of your existing work and life. Job search discouragement - the mismatches, the silence, the moments when you were perfect but so was someone else - all have a cumulative impact on us over time.
You can do everything right and still not find a path forward yet. It’s helpful to remember that this does not mean that you personally are a failure or an imposter or anything else like that. We are all facing structural conditions that attempt to devalue our labor by design for the profit of a select few. This is not about your actions alone – it’s a systemic problem. Can it be helpful to consider strategies, review ways you could improve your interviewing or visibility and make steps? Sure. But don’t forget that not finding a job yet may be in some part due to forces beyond your personal effort or credentials. It’s important to be fair to ourselves in this. Beating ourselves up when we are making good and strategic efforts does not help – it chips away at our hope and sense of agency.
The disappointment you feel about not being able to follow your plan and leave your job is something you are allowed to feel upset about. You are allowed to feel grief and frustration. Or just feel whatever you are feeling. I’d encourage you to talk to someone about it if you haven’t already. That could mean a therapist or coach such as myself, sure, but it could also mean a friend, loved one, trusted colleague, old mentor, etc. The goal isn’t to move through the feeling as quickly as possible so you can get back to work. It’s to notice what your feelings are trying to tell you, to apply that information towards more intentional self-compassion, and to not let this be the whole story for you.
I wish you community, small rebellions, genuine joys, and rest along the way. You want to be able to embrace yourself and your needs, even while you are waiting. Or at least I want that for you and I hope that with some self-care, support and perspective, you will want that kindness for yourself as well.
If you found this helpful, you may also find the upcoming sister post helpful as well: Coping With Job Search Rejections. In that post, I focus more on the experience of rejections rather than just the stuckness in between.
If you are wanting to connect with a group of people facing workplace exhaustion and job transitions, check out the Work Community Circle starting next month. If you want more personal or 1:1 support, please book a call so you and I can see if our working together would be a good fit for your needs.
A final note:
This post reflects themes common in my clinical work with high-functioning professionals, leaders, and working parents navigating career transitions and systemic barriers. This is meant for educational purposes only. I hope you found something helpful you can apply or feel some relief after reading it, but please remember this is a post and not personal therapy or coaching. If you ever want to connect for therapy, career coaching, or consultation, please of course feel free to book a free consult call here so we can see if our working together would be helpful for you.
