I’m highly skilled at what I do, so why does my work feel increasingly wrong?
This post is part of THE DEEP STUFF - reflective answers to the questions senior creatives ask.
I write these pieces as a coach and a former creative director. I work with experienced creatives who are navigating confidence loss, change and the pressure to stay relevant. No platitudes. No fridge magnet philosophy, just picking up on conversations that are hopefully useful to share.
One of the most unsettling moments in any creative career is realising your skills are on fire, but your relationship with the work isn’t. You still deliver and impress, but something about it just feels ‘off’. Not a clear cut walk out of the door ‘off’ (nothing that easy). You probably question if it’s even a real feeling. Trust me if it’s impacting on your confidence and motivation, that feeling is real.
It could be that you ready to do some work on evaluating your values and skills.
At the risk of stating the obvious, skills and values are not the same thing. I say this as I’ve asked enough people to tell me their values and the first thing they tell me is what they are good at.
Skills are what you have learned to do well. Values give meaning to doing them.
When you started out you probably found values and skills overlapped quite naturally or at the very least the discordance was easy to spot. (I value community, but no I don’t want to be a police officer - that sort of thing.)
Later on in your career it is very easy for skills to outpace values, especially in commercial creative industries that actively reward dexterity and output often over talent. (Ironic as it was most likely your natural talent that got the job.) And so, overtime, you become super proficient at delivering things you might not always deeply connect with because the rewards are seductive and high. And because you become very good at these new skills nobody questions it, least of all you.
It is very, very easy to stay functional inside work that no longer matters to you, for a while…
I work with high performing creatives who command rooms and stadiums, they know how to navigate difficult personalities and show up and shine, but they talk to me about boredom, resentment and feeling small. They’ve adapted for so long, they’ve stopped checking in on what they have grown into.
What happened to those values?
Values don’t disappear they just get lost in practicalities, paying the mortgage, holding on to status and yes, staying employable. Revisiting your values doesn’t mean you have to blow up your world. It just means giving yourself permission to ask yourself a few questions and ground yourself in the process.
What matters to you now? What work drains you the fastest? Where do you still feel energised, engaged or useful? What have you been putting up with for too long?
A good coach will support you through this process, giving you the space and tools to work on your values. You may find yourself reacquainted with some old ones and owning new ones. It’s energising work that gives you a fresh blueprint for how you want to show up - be it in your existing role or a pathway to a new one.
It certainly doesn’t mean killing off any skills. Just an honest look at which ones serve your values best. And to remember that age is not an excuse for not learning new ones.
If you like this mini series and have a question you don’t mind being answered publicly (no names obvs) get in touch by email
Discover more thinking from THE DEEP STUFF — the real questions senior creatives ask.
Some of these reflections first appear in longer form through external coaching and industry platforms before being adapted and expanded here.