If your progress is real but your options still feel narrow, don’t dismiss the progress.
It has already given you something valuable.
Now ask what it hasn’t given you yet.
Maybe you need exposure to different problems.
Maybe you need stronger decision-making experience.
Maybe you need a broader understanding of the business.
Maybe you need to work with different kinds of people.
Maybe you need to combine your existing expertise with another skill.
You don’t have to start over.
You need to expand the usefulness of what you’ve already built.
That might mean taking on a different kind of project, moving laterally, learning a complementary skill, working closer to another function, or simply becoming more deliberate about the problems you choose to solve.
A career can be progressing and still become too narrow.
Recognizing that early is not a sign that something has gone wrong.
It is a sign that you’re ready to think beyond the next promotion—and start building a career with more than one possible future.