Some professional growth arrives as a better fit rather than a bigger title.

Progress at work is usually pictured as a ladder, so any move that is not upward looks like standing still. But a great deal of real development is lateral: work that finally suits how you think, a team where your particular strengths are ordinary currency, a role that stops costing you every evening. None of that shows on a business card. It shows in how much of yourself you have left by Thursday.

Ask what a good year would actually feel like before asking what it would be called. If a sideways move would put you closer to that, it is not a detour.