10 Beliefs That Are Holding Back Your Career — and How to Beat Them

Changing perspective can help you develop a growth mindset

Emily Guy Birken

AARP

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Published August 29, 2025

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Your career has been humming along. Every annual review from your boss has been positive. So why do you feel as if your career is stalled? Maybe you’ve been passed over for promotion or just learned you are earning less than recently hired coworkers.

While various factors — including age discrimination — may play a role, it’s worthwhile to look within to see if you’re holding on to limiting beliefs that keep you from success. Some of the values that helped Gen Xers and boomers succeed on the job for years might actually be preventing their progress now.

Here are 10 of the most common career-blocking mental barriers. Which of these are keeping you from reaching your goals?

1. Having ‘realistic’ goals

Failure hurts. Risk-taking behavior can lead to setbacks that take time, money and energy to overcome, so many people were raised to aim for realistic goals rather than take calculated risks. For example, a 2023 report from the market research agency Media Culture notes, “Gen Xers are renowned for their emphasis on attainable goals, favoring well-planned strategies and realistic expectations over idealistic aspirations.”

Spending your time at work making safe or practical choices can limit your upward trajectory. To make progress, set some goals that might seem out of reach. It might feel unrealistic at first to imagine you’ll have the corner office, but making it a goal will help you start working toward it.

2. Thinking effort equals worth

The American work ethic is built into our cultural DNA. The more effort we put into our jobs, the more worthy we feel. According to Claudia Strauss, author of What Work Means: Beyond the Puritan Work Ethic, some people believe that “to be an excellent employee means working nights and weekends if necessary to complete their assignments at a high level; they do not work long hours simply to earn more money.”

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But that kind of hustle can be bad not only for your health; it also doesn’t fit the modern workplace, especially as AI makes it possible to do many tasks quickly. Long work hours may also not send your younger coworkers a positive message. For instance, millennials make up the largest share of the workforce, and that generation prizes work-life balance. A worker who gets in early and stays late for no apparent reason probably seems inefficient to a millennial manager.

3. Avoiding self-promotion for fear of bragging

Self-promotion at work can feel very uncomfortable, especially for women, according to a 2024 report from the Harvard Division of Continuing Education. Telling others about your accomplishments might feel like bragging, and you may prefer to let your work speak for itself rather than broadcast your achievements.

Let go of the idea that self-promotion and bragging are the same thing. Take credit for your work and describe how you add value, particularly in annual performance reviews, if your job requires them. You can also ask colleagues to talk up your accomplishments. Return the favor so it feels less like bragging.

4. Perfectionism

You may think there’s nothing wrong with wanting your work to be perfect, but holding yourself and your coworkers to extremely perfectionist standards can hurt motivation and lead to burnout.

No one wants a project with impossible to meet expectations. Holding such standards leads to procrastination and colleagues who are unwilling to work with you. Paradoxically, adopting the mantra of “Good enough is good enough” might get you further than the pursuit of perfection ever could.

5. Believing there is one right way to do something

For many professionals, some procedures may seem set in stone. You may have learned the process early in your career, and the details haven’t changed. Maintaining the same process makes for a smooth operation year after year.

But holding on to a single way of doing things can keep your career from growing. Shutting down new ideas because they’re not “right” doesn’t allow you or your organization to innovate. While new ideas should be vetted for feasibility, don’t assume your way is the only way.

6. Asking for more money is materialistic

According to one poll, younger workers are much more likely to ask for a raise than their older peers. A June Bankrate survey of 2,000 adults found that while 51 percent of Gen Z workers and 50 percent of millennials said they’re likely to ask for a raise in the next year, only 39 percent of Gen Xers and 20 percent of boomers said the same.

You may have started your career thinking that if your job puts good into the world, asking for more money is a betrayal of your commitment to the work. That limiting belief can stem from older cultural attitudes that see professions as “callings” rather than jobs.

But asking for more money is not materialistic, even if your job helps people. In fact, requesting a raise or other benefits can help push back against the idea that doing the work is compensation enough.

7. ‘Rocking the boat’ is bad

“Going along to get along” may have served you well throughout your career. Why upset anyone with quibbles about minor issues on a project or in the workplace?

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Your fear of rocking the boat may keep you in calm waters at the moment, but it may not do much for your long-term career progress. Voicing your concerns early on could save your team time and produce better results, even if it’s uncomfortable to disagree. If you have concerns about a circumstance or project on the job, Harvard Business Review suggests that you:

Ask more questions. Figure out the reasons why particular decisions were made.
Use the disagreement as a learning opportunity. Use the answers you get from the questions to think of creative solutions.
Hone your negotiation skills. Bounce possible solutions back and forth until you find an option most of the team agrees on.

8. Asking for help is a sign of weakness

Some of us grew up emulating the strong, silent type, such as characters played by Arnold Schwarzenegger or Sigourney Weaver in ’80s blockbuster movies. Such a hero would rarely ask for help — or receive it — so, like them, we look to handle most things by ourselves.

But everyone needs help sometimes. Not asking for help when needed doesn’t make you look stronger. It makes you look closed off, a perception that can cause issues, particularly if you’re significantly older than your coworkers. Try to be more engaged with your colleagues, and accept help when needed.

9. Assuming a scarcity mindset

Sometimes the world can feel as if there’s not enough opportunity to go around, especially if you’re being left out. Maybe you didn’t get a raise last year or missed out on a juicy project.

Thinking this way is what psychiatrists call a scarcity mindset, where you focus on what you’re missing instead of what you have. It’s difficult to break this mental pattern while recognizing that the scarcity might not be entirely real.

Yes, there may be only one partnership, but what other career milestones or benefits could you negotiate for? How else could you feel appreciated at work? Choosing to recognize or seek abundance often can help you find satisfying alternatives.

10. Constantly bracing for disappointment

Sometimes it feels prudent to not get your hopes up. For example, there are dozens of candidates for a job opening, so there’s no reason to believe you’ll get it. Preparing for disappointment may seem better than spending months in hopeful anticipation.

But bracing for disappointment can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you are sure you will not get anything you try for, how hard will you try? Instead of preparing for a seemingly inevitable failure, allow yourself to enjoy the feeling of hope — and the genuine satisfaction when you get what you wanted.

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