Your Next Clear Move
Welcome to Your Next Clear Move™—the podcast for leaders, professionals, and high-capacity humans who are done “getting ready” and ready to move.
I’m Debbie Peterson, Leadership Readiness Expert, and in each episode I deliver grounded insight, clarity-driven mindset strategies, and one actionable step to help you stop the drift and lead yourself forward.
This isn’t about fixing what’s broken. It’s about reconnecting to what matters—and making decisions that align with who you are and how you want to lead next.
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Your Next Clear Move
Professional Drift: The Hidden Cost of Being ‘Busy’ in Leadership
Have you ever felt like something was off in your professional life, despite outward success? You're hitting deadlines, showing up where decisions are made, but inside, something feels missing. This creeping disconnect is what I call "professional drift" — and it might be the biggest unrecognized threat to your leadership impact today.
Professional drift isn't burnout. You're still functioning, but you're not flourishing. You're engaged but not energized, producing but not progressing. It's that slow, almost imperceptible slide away from purpose that happens when we become untethered from what truly matters to us. For high-achievers, this drift can go unnoticed for months or even years because our instinct when feeling off-track is simply to work harder.
In this deeply personal episode, I share my own journey through professional drift — how I found myself "mad, miserable, and medicated" despite appearing successful on paper. I reveal the wake-up call that helped me realize I had more control than I thought and how this realization led to the development of the Clarity Compass framework. This powerful tool helps leaders navigate out of drift through five essential questions that reconnect you with purpose and direction.
Professional drift isn't just a personal issue; it's organizational. When you as a leader drift, so do your teams. Priorities blur, performance suffers, and retention becomes challenging. What appears as a strategy problem is often, at its core, a clarity problem. The good news? You're not alone, and you're not stuck. Your first step out of drift is simply naming it, then pausing to ask what truly matters now. Ready to stop drifting and start leading with clarity? Listen now, and discover how to make your next clear move toward the impact you're meant to have.
Hey, hello and welcome back. I am Debbie Peterson of Getting to Clarity, and this is another episode of the Getting to Clarity podcast. This is the place, whether you need support for your role or to share with your team that you come. You get the tips, tools and techniques to help you create more of an impact in your work with less of a sacrifice in your life to you and to what is important. And today I am introducing a topic, something that I feel is vitally important, and it's called professional drift. So stay tuned.
Speaker 3:Welcome to the Getting to Clarity podcast the place where busy leaders discover how to create more success in their leadership journey with less sacrifice in their life.
Speaker 2:Here's your host, debbie Peterson, of Getting to Clarity.
Speaker 1:So what we're talking about today professional drift. I want to put some context around this, because what I am seeing in myself and in my audiences and others that I have conversations with, is that there is a cost, a hidden cost, of being busy in your role and your business and your leadership. And you know it's something that might start as a slow slide. You know a slight slip Say that five times really fast but it's something that's barely noticeable at first. You know you're still on target, you're still hitting deadlines, you're still showing up. You know you're still at the table where decisions are being made. You know outwardly Everything is humming along, but inside you feel like something is off. You've lost track, perhaps, of what drives you. Your energy is scattered everywhere, you're responding to everything and it feels like Nothing is moving forward. And I know that many of us have days like that. And it's not burnout, because you are showing up, but you're just not lit up by the work anymore and you're definitely not as energized as you used to be. And especially today, in this current environment, a lot of us are finding ourselves in this place and that is what I call professional drift and in my opinion, it is one of the biggest threats to having an impact in your leadership, to creating momentum towards what you want, and no one is really talking about it. So professional drift is something that happens when you're no longer anchored or tethered to what matters to you. You don't even know what that is, but you keep moving forward out of habit. It is one of those days where you're just trying to get through the day. You know you're busy but you're not fulfilled. You're engaged-ish, but maybe you're not energized. You know you're producing but you're not progressing. You know you've drifted away from focus and now it's just this whirlwind of activity to just keep all the balls in the air and keep everything moving forward. You know you're showing up for your role, but are you disconnected from what used to feel meaningful to you? You know like it was when you first took the role. That's the question. And for many high achievers this slow drift can go unnoticed for months, because the answer when you feel a little bit is to get busier. And sometimes this can go on for years. And I know for me it did, because outwardly everything looks okay, still looks successful, and I thought okay. When this happened to me I was like what is wrong with me that I am feeling unfulfilled, I'm not feeling happy. But if I told anybody this, if I spoke this to anyone, they would think there was something wrong with me because it appeared I had the dream job, you know. So I ended up there and many leaders end up there and this professional drift.
Speaker 1:It doesn't come from a lack of effort. It is not that you are not trying. It comes from over effort without a clear path forward. You know it is throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what's going to stick and it creeps in when you've been reacting instead of reflecting. You're not taking that deep thinking time to figure out what is really working, what is not working and what have you been tolerating instead of addressing. Maybe you've been saying yes to too much and no to what really matters. Maybe you've been chasing urgency without realizing you're not going in any specific direction. You're just kind of going everywhere.
Speaker 1:And I have seen this in seasoned executives who feel like they're going through all the emotions, going through everything that they can to get ahead, to keep that momentum, and it's just not happening. I've seen it in emerging leaders who wonder if they're even cut out for it, if they're cut out for leadership if they're even in the right place, and again, I've lived it myself. So professional drift is sneaky, okay, but it's also deeply personal, and I know this firsthand because when drift gets personal in my life, it was my wake up call, because at one point I found myself smack in the middle of this professional drift and on paper everything looked fine, I was meeting expectations, I was showing up, I was going above and beyond, I was doing all the things they told you to do Raise your hand, lean in doing the work but inside I felt like I was treading water and even worse than that, I felt like I was wasting my potential. You know, there was this whisper I just couldn't ignore. It was like a nudge that I was meant to do more, I was meant to make a greater impact, I was supposed to stop playing small. But here's the problem no one was telling me what that meant or how to get there. So for me, I pushed, and the more I pushed the more I stalled. You know, it was beyond frustration into exhaustion.
Speaker 1:And at that point I'm in my 40s and I'm on high blood pressure medicine you know, migraine medicine and anti-anxiety medicine and I'm thinking you've got to be kidding me. I used to joke that I was officially mad, miserable and medicated. But really deep down I knew the meds were what I needed in the moment. But I knew they weren't the fix, they were a signal. And then came a turning point and I was sent to a mindset, training through work. And I remember thinking oh my goodness, what is thinking, happy thoughts, going to do for me when my life is such a mess and my work too? And so I went in with this real arms crossed sort of attitude and I was skeptical.
Speaker 1:But within hours it became crystal clear to me that I had been the one that was in my own way. And it wasn't what I was thinking. It was about how I was thinking, and how I was thinking was feeding the stress. But here's the deal. I also knew at that point that I had more control and influence than I thought I did. I had more control and influence than I thought I did. I had solutions. So that realization just really cracked open something vitally important for me. It was like I was living in a fog I didn't even realize that I was living in and it began to lift and I saw how I had been pulled off course, by what I am now terming professional drift.
Speaker 1:I became untethered and I saw that I had the power to steer myself back, and so do you. That's my message for you. You got this, but first you have to stop drifting and start noticing. And here's why it matters now, because the truth is this isn't just a personal issue, it's an organizational one, because when you, as a leader, drift, so do your teams. They pick up on it.
Speaker 1:When priorities blur because you don't have direction, then performance follows that. When clarity fades, then there is no direction and retention can really become an issue. So if your team feels scattered, if succession planning is difficult to navigate, if your top performers are quietly disengaging they call it, what is it I read in an article this morning unbossing Then it may not be a strategy problem. It might very well be a clarity problem, and clarity is where the professional drift reversal begins. It is the antidote. So I help leaders navigate out of drift and into momentum, and the tool that I use is called the compass, the clarity compass, and the reason is because it gives you direction right. It's not about doing more, it's about making the right moves, what I call clear moves, and in the compass, we walk through five essential questions.
Speaker 1:When you feel like you're in a place where you don't have direction and there's something that you want to move, or maybe you have a whole lot of options that you want to move toward and you don't know how to make the right decision, maybe you're in a place where you are uncertain, ask yourself why is it that you're doing this and why are you doing this? Could be why you do the role or the work that you do, why it's important and meaningful to you. Or it could be when you're looking at a slate of options to pursue. Next, why do you want them? And really getting clear on that, because motivation is what underlies that. What matters most right now? That's the next question, because in any given moment, you can determine what matters most when making a next move. That gives you clarity of direction. Who can help you? Who is it that has done this or something like this that can help you shortcut the progress, like there are people who are subject matter experts and coaches and have written books, and there's podcasts, and there's mentors and there's sponsors. Who are the people that can help you get what you want?
Speaker 1:How is the next? On the framework, how am I going to take aligned action? So, when you figure out your why and what matters most, then how can it happen? Get curious about how you break down that goal until you get specific about the tasks that you need to do. And then what is your next clear move? That's your move to get you into action. And these questions are the foundation of the Clarity Edge philosophy that I believe in, that I have created, because where mindset meets movement, then strategy gets personal. And this is all in your hands, because leadership without clarity is just motion, and motion without intention eventually leads to drift. So what do you do with all of this? Well, I'm so glad you asked, because your next clear step is this If you're listening to this and you're thinking, ooh, this might be me, please know you are not alone and you are also not stuck.
Speaker 1:You have a move, and the first move out of drift if this is where you find yourself is by naming it. Just speak it into existence, because the next step is choosing to pause long enough to ask yourself what is one thing that is important right now. Even if the answer isn't clear yet, that question alone can start pulling you out of drift and pointing you back towards what matters, and that's where your energy and your focus belong. So I'm here for you. I'd love to hear from you.
Speaker 1:I read all of the messages that come in. I read all of the comments that are left on social media. I would love to hear from you of the comments that are left on social media. I would love to hear from you, and if you would like to talk about what that could look like for you, for maybe your leaders, your teams or your organization, then I would love to start the conversation. You can head on over to my website at wwwdebbiepetersonspeakscom. And until the next time, here is wishing you all the clarity that you deserve and none of the drift that you don't Take care. Be good to yourself and bye-bye. For now.
Speaker 2:Thank you for listening to this episode of the Getting to Clarity Podcast with Debbie Peterson. If you enjoyed this show please rate and recommend it on iTunes or wherever you enjoy your podcasts. To learn more about how you can bring Debbie and her transformational clarity leadership strategies to your organization, visit debbepetersonspeakscom.
