My colleague Brent tells the story of how he got "stuck" at his old job.

I decided to leave because I got stuck, there wasn't any room to grow anymore. The perspective of being a developer who's 5 years behind of modern day practices made me miserable.

Even though I'd been advocating within the company to make significant changes, both on a technical and management level; it didn't seem achievable. We were still struggling to deliver the quality we promised our clients, we were using out of date technologies, I went home almost every day feeling down and depressed.

I believe "we were still struggling to deliver the quality we promised our clients" is what really wears you down. Using out of date technologies might have held the team back in this situation, but isn't necessarily the root cause.

I don't regret having worked for that company: I did learn valuable lessons there. It's ok to be at a place where there's little or no room for growth, as long as it's not too long. Watch out, and critically assess your situation from time to time; you might get stuck without even knowing it.

It's important to evaluate from time to time. Not just your job, but all of your work. Ask yourself how the project you're working on is going every now and then. What went wrong in the last few months? What are you happy with? Keeping this in check will keep you from getting stuck.

Read the full post on stitcher.io.