The career ladder has been sold as the obvious path. But not everyone thrives in leadership. Not everyone wants to manage other people’s work and not everyone wants the pressure that comes with a bigger title.
You might be more drawn to mastery, to building expertise, to being the person who knows their craft deeply instead of the person who oversees ten people doing it. While others will assume you are stuck, the truth is your path is just not as linear as theirs is and this confuses them.
To you, forward means deeper, not just higher. It also maybe means more meaning, not more meetings. If this is true, you have to be absolutely open and honest about it. If you don’t and end up saying yes to a role you don’t want just to meet someone else’s idea of progress, you will end up exhausted, resentful or disconnected from the work you used to love.