Many jobs feel repetitive, creating the risk of career stagnation. The movie Groundhog Day offers a blueprint for how to move your career forward, even when nothing seems to change.
Thanks to the creative genius of Danny Rubin and Harold Ramis, and the incredible strength, nuance, and range of Bill Murray’s acting, Groundhog Day (the holiday) will forever be associated with repetition and growth. If you haven’t seen the movie Groundhog Day, I highly recommend it. It teaches us not only the importance of growth (personal or professional), but how to do it. This is applicable not only if you’re stuck in a rut at your job, but for anyone looking for professional development.
[Warning: spoilers below.]
Phil (played by Murray) finds himself repeating the same day over and over again. For some people, their jobs can feel like that. Wake up, go through the motions, repeat. For some people, this is ideal. (In the DISC personality model, for example, the “green” trait values stability and predictability.) For others, it can be torture. (We might even consider Groundhog Day a comedic twist on Jean-Paul Sartre’s No Exit, much the same way The Three Amigos comedically revisited The Seven Samurai. Hell would certainly be running into Ned every day.) Whichever side of the spectrum you’re on, however, some change will be needed in your life. Groundhog Day can help us understand why and how.
Even if you crave stability and repeatability, the world doesn’t work that way. Phil may wake up to the exact same day, in the exact same state, e.g., “We better get going if we’re going to stay ahead of the weather,” Larry recommends day after day. But in the real world the weather isn’t exactly the same day after day. If yesterday was cold, today probably will be, too, but over time it will change. Likewise, even if your job seems the same day after day, the world in which your job exists will change. Industries evolve, technologies advance, competitors enter and leave, economies grow and contract; these changes alter the environment in which your job exists. And this is to say nothing of how you may change, including your interests, priorities, and values.
A police detective in 1986 and a police detective in 2016 both solved crimes and caught criminals. For a career spanning those thirty years the title and general approach, i.e. looking for clues, stayed consistent. However, the methods and tools they used varied greatly, including the internet, cell phones, databases, more cameras, DNA identification, etc. A detective who didn’t adopt new tools and technologies would wind up a dinosaur. His career success would be diminished.
All of us, even those who like things as they are, need to evolve. Nearly every office job has changed over the past few decades, and it will change again in the coming decades. AI will likely accelerate this change and rapidly shift the mix of tasks an employee is expected to do. Even if you just want to keep your current job for decades to come, you need to continue to learn and grow. But how can you grow if you’re stuck in the same routine over and over?
[Again, spoilers.]
Phil lived the same day over and over. In his arc, he learned to play the piano, developed relationships with the people of the town, and developed empathy. IMDB estimates that it took him not one day, but approximately 12,400 days (roughly 34 years), even if it was technically the same day repeated that many times. Understanding how he did that can help us develop our own growth plans.
Day after day Phil shows up at the house of the piano teacher (played by Peggy Roeder). Starting from scratch he learned the musical scales and over time became a proficient piano player. (Part of the calculation of the 34 years comes from using the oft-misunderstood-but-apt-in-this-case 10,000-hour concept for developing certain types of new skills.) For major skills it’s a slow process that happens over time, but if you put in the effort on a consistent basis, it pays off in the end. For Phil that was learning to play the piano, carve ice sculptures, and speak French. For you it might be public speaking, negotiations, advanced accounting, new software or advanced tools, sales, or other domain specific skills. The good news is you’ll be effective, even if not a master, in far less than 10,000 hours and will begin to benefit from the new skill.
Phil also learned the backstories of the townsfolk and developed relationships with them. Networking isn’t transactional but relationship building. Learning about someone is a great way to foster that relationship. As with a new skill, this takes time. You can’t get to know someone in a single day; thankfully Phil had years to build it.
Caveat: the relationships here were a bit asymmetrical since while Phil had years, the townspeople only had the one day. His consistent small, but noticeable efforts were enough to endear him to the townspeople, from showing an interest in their lives to helping them with a flat, even though they only saw his actions over a single day. Sincere effort, even small acts, accelerates the development of relationships.
Finally, Phil developed empathy, helping him find his own happiness. Empathy, as well as other soft skills like leadership, communication, and teamwork, can’t always be learned in a manner quite as structured as with piano lessons. Like the piano, you can get a teacher (or mentor), and you learn by doing, both practice and performing. Unlike learning to play the piano, where you can see clear milestones with the pieces you perform, and there are standard development paths that work nearly universally, your growth path may not be so clear. Nevertheless, effort over time, especially with guidance, will help you improve in these and other soft skills. Don’t get discouraged by the lack of milestones. You might even find yourself needing to revise your earlier understanding of the skill, just as Phil came to realize his earlier attempts to build a relationship with Rita (Andie MacDowell), while seemingly promising at first, were ultimately the wrong way to approach it.
The movie Groundhog Day is ultimately about personal growth. In truth, so are our careers, and life in general. Sometimes that growth is forced upon us, say at a fast-growing startup company. But even when we’re stuck in a rut, growth is not only possible, but necessary since the world itself is never truly static, even if our lives or jobs may seem that way. A movie montage can show change over minutes; for the rest of us it can take weeks, months, or even years. Like a child who feels he’s not growing fast enough, rest assured, change is happening, even if from one day to the next you don’t see it. Keep at it, slow and steady not only wins the race, but changes your life. If you’re looking for more career advice, you can find hundreds of additional career development articles here—I’ve got you babe.
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