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What Are You Permitting That's Preventing Your Progress?
What Are You Permitting That's Preventing Your Progress?I’ve often thought there are really two ways to improve your career as a network engineer:
Most of us automatically default to the former and ignore the latter. We’re conditioned to believe that career growth means doing more. More tools. More scripts. More certifications. More projects. But here’s the truth: the simplest, fastest path to progress isn’t addition. It’s subtraction. Here’s a simple, but uncomfortable question: What are you currently permitting that you shouldn’t? This question forces you to confront the inefficient workflows, self-defeating habits, draining relationships, and quiet compromises that have slowly crept into your work life. These don’t appear overnight. They sneak in quietly. It is called Creeping Normality in psychology which is the gradual acceptance of negative change, because it happens in such small increments that you hardly notice it at all. One day you realize:
None of it happened in a single moment. It built up slowly. Step by step, day by day, until it negatively impacted your career trajectory. The good thing is you can fight back. So ask yourself again: What am I currently permitting that I shouldn’t? Identify it. Address it. Remove it. Because the fastest path to leveling up your career as a network engineer isn’t adding more. It’s subtracting what holds you back. |
The Modern Engineer
Join 1k+ other forward-thinking professionals who receive the weekly newsletter, where I provide actionable strategies, insights and tools to escape the grind and build influential, future-proof careers. Sign up and I will send yoy a FREE copy of my 5-Stage playbook to multiply your impact and build a career that AI can't replace.
Hello Reader, I spoke with an old friend last week. He told me he spent 4 years as a senior engineer watching less experienced engineers get to the next level ahead of him. His designs were cleaner. His solutions were faster. His technical reviews were thorough. But he kept getting the same feedback: "You need to be more visible and strategic" He thought that meant talking more in meetings. He was wrong. What he lacked was influence at work The Real Problem Here’s what actually happens when...
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