"At work, we still talk about careers like they're ladders. As if success must be a straight line upward: more responsibility, bigger title, better office. But that old image isn't just outdated. It can be harmful. Ladders come with an unspoken message: if you're not climbing, you must be falling. If you experience job loss, the ladder metaphor makes you feel like you slipped off and can't recover."
"Imagine a quilt. It's not one long piece of cloth that stretches up into the sky. Instead, it's many pieces, each with its own shape, material, color, and history, stitched together into something useful and uniquely meaningful. That's what modern careers look like: Pieces of skill you build over time Patterns of work that overlap and influence one another Mistakes, leaps, and detours that add texture"
Many workplaces describe careers as ladders, implying a single straight upward path of increasing responsibility, title, and status. That ladder image creates pressure and an unspoken message that any pause, lateral move, or setback equals failure. Job loss, sideways moves, or complete career changes feel like falling off and having to start from scratch. A quilt offers a more accurate model: careers are assembled from varied pieces of skills, overlapping patterns of work, mistakes, detours, and changing priorities. A career quilt allows direction, purpose, and depth without constant comparison to others. The quilt model frames career change as rearrangement and growth rather than decline.
Read at Fast Company
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