3 Thinking Errors Keeping You in a Career Rut
Feeling professionally stuck is one of the most exhausting and diminishing experiences a grown-up can have. It wears you down and, over time, extinguishes your light - the very thing that made you a compelling hire way back when!
And I know this, because I’ve been there…and I had to learn the hard way that my very own well-intentioned brain was actually part of my problem.
The Mind Can Reinforce Obstacles
Too many ambitious professionals are afraid to move to the nearest exit because they are wrestling with three common thinking errors.
Yes, you heard that right…these are internal obstacles, not external obstacles!
The three most common thinking errors that kept me in a career rut, and may be keeping you in a rut too are:
LOSS AVERSION
A perception bias that values your potential ‘losses’ in status, income, lifestyle, etc, as much as 2x greater than your potential gains in a new role or organizational context
STATUS QUO BIAS
A heightened attachment to existing comforts like familiar working relationships, an established commute, system fluency, etc., to justify avoiding any disruptive change
SUNK COST FALLACY
A defiant commitment to the strategies, projects, or plans you’ve already invested time, money, and energy into, long after they stopped producing positive or desired results.
Now, to be fair, every single human being is susceptible to these thinking errors, so I don’t recommend trying to eradicate them.
But what I do recommend to my clients is to get better at identifying them, so you can hear how they are keeping you exactly where you are.
Listen for the Buzzers
Because thinking errors are inherently internal, it is imperative that you pay closer attention to how these biases are shaping (aka limiting) your internal logic and external choices.
The first way to do this is to listen more carefully to yourself and the ‘buzzers’ that kill your motivation to think and act differently.
“I won’t know what to say when people ask me what I do…” or
“What if I can’t earn as much as I earn here?”
This is textbook loss aversion.
“At least everyone knows me here, and I know how to work through the dysfunction here.” or
“What if the next job just has different problems?”
This is textbook status quo bias.
“I can't walk away now…” or
“Maybe if I work harder, I can make it better…”
This is textbook sunk cost fallacy.
The deceptive genius of these buzzers is that they make you want to stop and study your blocks with greater diligence and responsibility - like a gameshow you’re meant to ‘win’ if you just study more or play longer - which is exactly why you end up sticking around for far too long!
Fortunately, there is a way to work around them!
Don’t Think Harder, Ask Smarter
To work around your thinking errors and uncover better-for-you alternatives before it’s too late, you don’t need to work harder or be smarter; you need to ask yourself better questions.
Instead of asking some version of: What could I lose?
Try asking: What is staying actually costing me?
And instead of asking some version of: How much longer can I tolerate this?
Try asking: What would be a more worthwhile challenge?
And instead of asking some version of: How much have I already invested here?
Try asking: Would I sign up for this job today?
Questions like these generate candid self-insight, and candid self-insight has a direct line to motivation - the ‘gas tank’ that has the power to lift you out of your career rut and push you towards new ideas, new choices, and new opportunities.
