In this Day 11 episode of the 30/30 Career Transformation Challenge, Margaret Spence – founder of the Employee to CEO Project and the 10X Leadership Academy for Women – asks viewers to identify the root cause of their stalled career growth. She argues that external factors (boss, company, coworkers) are rarely the true barrier; instead, a lack of strategic planning and personal accountability keeps professionals, especially women, stuck in the same role. Spence contrasts “working in your career” (tactical execution) with “working on your career” (strategic vision), urging participants to map out concrete milestones across 90‑day, 6‑month, 1‑year, 2‑year, 5‑year and 10‑year horizons. She emphasizes that growth can be upward or lateral, but each move should expand competencies and strengthen the résumé. The video concludes with a call to action: develop a personal strategic plan, share the challenge with others, and continue the transformation journey.
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Day 11 of the 30/30 Career Transformation Challenge. Hi, my name is Margaret Spence, and I'm the founder of the Employee to CEO Project and 10X Leadership Academy for Women. Thank you for joining me on this journey. If you've watched the prior videos, you know that this is the challenge to reset your career in the month of September so that you're charting a new course and You're moving your career forward and you're thinking much more boldly about where you could go with your career. So today's bold question: What's stopping your career growth? What's stopping you from growing? Did you walk into your job a year ago, 2 years ago, 3 years ago, and you had a plan to grow. You had a plan for where you wanted to go, but you got into this particular position and you've landed there and you see nowhere else for you to go. You've plateaued. Your growth is stagnant and you're stuck. Here's something I want to say to you. Where you start out in your career should not be where you end up. Oftentimes what I see are people who make chess moves while they're playing checkers. So you're actually moving from one side of the room to the next side of the room when you make a career change. You switch from one job in the same position to take another job in the same position. There's no forward growth. It's just stagnant cross-directional growth. What I want to say to you today is your career is a living organism. It's up to you to make a plan for your career growth. Where do you see yourself in 90 days? Where do you see yourself in 6 months, 9 months, a year, 1, 2 years, 5 years, 10 years? Where do you see yourself along your career continuum? And, and while you're looking at where you want to go, in your career continuum and how you want to grow, what are the steps that's going to be necessary for you to grow within your career? We, especially women, we are often guilty of working in our career and not working on our career. We spend all of our time becoming excellent tactical employees. We're great at the tactics of working, but we're not good at the strategy of growth. Growth requires you to lift your head up from the desk you're in, look out into the horizon, and figure out where you want to go next. Next is not always up. Sometimes it's lateral, but it's a part of the building process. Every role that you take on should be adding to your resume and growing you as a person and stretching your competencies and stretching your ability to take on higher and more challenging roles. Again, where you start out should not be where you end up. So today's question, what's stopping your career growth? Is it you? Is it your boss? Is it the company you're working for? Let me give you a little insight. It's not the company you work for. It's not your boss. It's not your coworkers. It's not the environment. What's stopping your career growth is you. Your lack of having a plan for what you want to do with your career is what has you stuck where you are right now. So as you're joining me in this 30/30 Challenge, I want to challenge you today to figure out what kind of growth you want out of your career. And when you figure out what kind of growth you want, I want you to spend the time working out a strategic plan for building on the career you have right now. Thank you for joining me for the 30/30 Challenge. This has been an amazing 11 days, and please stay tuned. If you love this video, please share it with your network. Tell other people about the challenge because if you need the information, they need the information too. Thank you for joining.
