This week I’ve been working on a career niggle with a couple of clients. Something that’s been on their mind for a while that hasn’t gone away. A niggle sounds small but, like a tiny stone in your shoe, it can be persistent, annoying, and distracting. At some point it demands attention – we have to stop and shake that stone out. So I thought it might help to shed some light on what career niggles are, why they stick around, and what we can do to put them to bed.
What is a career niggle?
A career niggle is a specific and persistent thought. Often it feels tantalising, because it’s just out of reach of your awareness.
Each person’s niggles are different but what they tend to have in common is that although they have a headline, they’re unexplored and not fully formed. And in that stage they can keep us stuck. Here are some examples:
- Something we didn’t do in the past. “I never went to uni” or “I wish I’d explored art more”.
- A career idea we keep thinking about. “I’d love to write a book” or “maybe I should work in HR”.
- A comment someone made once that stuck. Like “you know, you’d be really good at being a counsellor”.
What the stuckness looks like
- Feeling unsettled. It’s hard to be content where we are when there’s a nagging thought about doing something different or a missed opportunity.
- No headspace. All the time they’re on our mind and filling our field of vision, it’s hard to think about other ideas and possibilities.
- Feeling daunted. The thought of exploring or having to act on a niggling thought can feel too big and put us off even starting to look at it. But still, it sticks around.
Dealing with a career niggle
I think of a career niggle as a thought that is stifled. For some reason I picture it like a coloured blob trapped in a box that’s too small. It’s changing shape and pushing up against the sides, trying to get out. The only way I know to deal with it is to let it out and give it room. Let it fully expand, see what size it is, and what its shape really is. In doing that, we get a better sense of what’s really there and what (if anything) to do with it.
A stifled thought can’t really develop without giving you airtime. All the time it’s in your head, it stays much the same. You need to be able to talk about it until you get to the end of your thoughts on it. The first layer that’ll come out will be obvious – it’s the idea, question, or thought that’s been nagging at you. But since it’s stuck, there’s probably more to it. Letting that layer out and seeing what comes next is what helps us. Then we can see more clearly what it’s about and properly explore it.
Some of the power of expressing a thought out loud is that it makes it more real. Saying it, with nobody laughing at it or having an opinion on it or sweeping it away, means you can test out how it actually feels. And how it feels is a big part of determining what resolution you come to.
Exploring a career niggle – three possible resolutions
No action needed
Sometimes we give the niggle the room it needs and it doesn’t grow much at all. In the process of talking about it and exploring it, it loses all its urgency and size. There’s actually nothing there to act on and no motivation. You realise you don’t want to write a book or re-train, or you’re no longer hung up on the fact you didn’t go to uni. It’s something you’ve moved past. You just needed to say it out loud and check in with it, to know that. You can put it to bed.
Pointing us in the right direction
Other times the specific idea of the niggle takes a backseat, but we find something underneath the idea that is useful. Something that can take us in a different and better direction. If the idea you had doesn’t feel quite right after all, we might explore why it’s on your mind at all. Maybe you don’t want to re-train, but you do want more challenge. Maybe you don’t really regret going to uni anymore, but your professional identity and confidence needs a boost. The niggle is sometimes a clue to something else that’s more important. It points us in the right direction, to something that we can explore instead, and then it goes away.
Something we can act on
And sometimes the niggle lasts the process of talking about it. It genuinely is something you want to move forward with. If we’ve talked about it, dug into it, lightly challenged it and it’s still there, we can consider if/how/when to act on it. It goes from a vague notion to something more fully-formed. It becomes easier to see the next step in taking it forward.
What changes by exploring it
The initial difference in paying attention to a career niggle in a different way is the feeling of relief.
- What felt tight and nagging relaxes.
- What was hazy and confusing gets clear.
- What felt big and distracting shrinks to a manageable size.
- Where there was noise, there’s more peace and space to think.
Then there’s where that leaves you. With closure. More settled, calmer, more content where you are. Or with a way forward that you can act on.
When I work with people on a career niggle, exploring it doesn’t mean you have to act on it. There’s no expectation that you’ll do anything as a result. I’m invested in working through it to give you closure, rather than what you ultimately decide to do (or not do). It could just be about really knowing what it’s about, and laying it to rest.
Hi, I’m Helen. I’m a qualified careers professional (RCDP) with the Career Development Institute. If you’d like to explore a career niggle, I’d love to guide you through. Find out about career coaching.
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