Your job is not the only work you do. And life is not what you do away from your job.
Because most of us have to work for a living, the trade-offs we make - to earn more money, to ensure a future for our kids, to join organizations with future prospects - are as much a function of what is out there, as our need to build a life we can be proud of.
Work then, can be a battle-ground - where our needs for identity, meaning, and status, conflict constantly with the mundane demands that life makes on us. Managed well (or with luck), it can become a channel for outcomes that matter deeply to us. That is when work doesn't feel like work.
But without a clear understanding of this fundamental conflict within our lives, we can begin to feel distant from ourselves and our values, chained to a treadmill we would dearly love to jump off.
That is when we start feeling 'stuck' at work, and begin to ask questions: Have I made the right trade-offs? Is this what I really want? Am I willing to put in what it will take? What do I risk losing? Is it too late to make a change...?