When the great Impressionist painter Paul Gauguin ditched his boring job as a stockbroker and skipped off to Tahiti, he lived out an escapist fantasy that most people would confine to their daydreams or weekend getaways. Depending on your perspective, you may consider Gauguin courageous (for living out his desires) or immature (for abandoning his obligations). Mrs. Gauguin was probably not too thrilled with his decision, whereas art lovers everywhere are likely to applaud his bravado.
The magnitude of his accomplishments may color your vision. If you knew you had the talent of a Gauguin, you might run off to a tropical paradise to paint, too. Possessing more ordinary skills might make you think twice.
But did Gauguin really possess some fabulous innate artistic genius or, more likely, an incredible drive to bring his talents to fruition? By taking the initiative to explore his dream, he discovered a wellspring of potential within himself. Who knows what might happen to you if you could devote your full attention to developing your potential?
However you judge Gauguin-as a great artist, as an immature guy in the throes of a midlife crisis, or both-it's clear his tremendous talent would never have seen the light of day if he hadn't also had the ability to throw convention to the winds and live as he pleased.
Of course, his approach wouldn't work for everybody. The point is that he found a unique solution, which led to a uniquely satisfying accomplishment and lifestyle.
You may very well place your family responsibilities and financial obligations above your duty to fulfill your personal potential. This, too, is a valid choice. What you need to question, however, is whether you're being unnecessarily shortsighted. If you see yourself as someone without a lot of talent or potential to fulfill, it's easy to idealize your loyalties and stay right where you are.
There are many good reasons not to make changes. Lack of self-confidence isn't one of them, especially if you're really unhappy with your current job or career. Even if you never aspire to great achievements, you can aspire to happiness. But don't expect it to fall in your lap. You have to go out and find it.
Believing that you could never have a truly satisfying career is just a way of justifying inertia, says career counselor Mike Murphy with the Signet Group in Chicago, Illinois. "When all the choices you make are based on a false premise, the conclusions that flow from that premise are likely to be false, too," says Murphy. "How can you know there's nothing out there for you when you haven't even looked?" Too often, says Murphy, "We convince ourselves we can't do what really we're afraid to do."
Gauguin may have gone to extremes, but most people dream too small, making unnecessary sacrifices in the name of some misunderstood "reality."
Before you conclude that you have no choice but to stay in a job or occupation that isn't right for you, take some time to ex-amine your beliefs. Leave open the possibility that some assumptions you've been making about yourself may be more self-fulfilling prophesy than objective reality.
To break free of that psychological bondage, you need to recognize these self-deceptions for what they are-a way to prevent yourself from getting hurt by not trying.
Here are some of the "lies that bind."
Lie 1. It Would Be Disloyal of Me to Look Around
A 20-year veteran of the Bell system swelled with pride when describing himself as a "loyal corporate foot soldier." By that, he meant his employer could count on him to go wherever and do whatever he was asked. If his career path looked more like a potpourri of jobs than a logical progression of upward moves, he took comfort in knowing that he was needed. In exchange for that sacrifice, he expected them to find a place for him for as long as he wanted to work.
Divestiture didn't sit well with him, but he never dreamed it would affect him directly. When his name showed up on a list of people classified as "available for reassignment," he assumed he'd be picked up by another division immediately. Even after receiving his 60-day notice, he refused to look outside the company.
Only after he was actually forced off the payroll did the foolishness of his ways occur to him. Loyalty was supposed to be a two-way street, but he was the only one honoring the contract. When the company no longer needed him, he was discarded like yesterday's newspaper, without a second thought for his welfare.
It was a hard lesson, and he was ill-prepared to handle the emotional fallout. Had he recognized sooner that the changes in company structure signaled the end of their psychological employment contract, he could have taken more steps to protect himself. But by closing his eyes too long to reality, he ended up frightened and cynical-scrambling for his livelihood in a competitive workplace he couldn't begin to understand.
When you tell yourself you can't betray your company's loyalty by leaving, you abdicate responsibility for your own future and, some would say, betray yourself instead.
Lie 2. I Might Fail Somewhere Else
By the time she finally made the decision to quit, the technical trainer who'd been offered a consulting contract to stay had convinced herself that no employer would ever want to hire her. To her amazement, she was off the payroll less than one week when a former vendor extended her a job offer.
Low self-esteem and interpersonal conflicts with bosses or co-workers are often at the heart of this self-defeating scenario.
A little reality testing can go a long way toward checking such self-destructive fantasies (and they usually are fantasies). By networking with people who'd worked with her before, the technical trainer got some objective feedback on her performance that helped mitigate her anxieties.
If a lack of self-confidence is blocking your ability to seek out better opportunities, it may help to test the job market before reaching any final decisions. You can make a commitment to look around without making a commitment to leave. Should your first foray into the job market reveal that you are, in fact, missing a crucial skill or piece of experience, you can establish short-term goals for yourself that will fill that gap. Then, once you've built the necessary expertise, you'll be able to move on.
Should you discover (as many do) that no one has a lower opinion of you than yourself, you may want to consider professional counseling. A major self-esteem problem can really get in the way of your success.
Lie 3. I'll Never Make as Much Money Anywhere Else
Having worked your way up to a respectable salary level, it's understandable you'd resist giving up one cent of those hard-earned dollars.
Before you turn that self-defeating lie into a showstopper, though, you may want to examine your assumptions more closely. Odds are, you haven't investigated the job market thoroughly enough to know whether you'd earn less elsewhere. You may just be using money as an excuse to keep you from testing the waters. Again, you can make a commitment to look without making a commitment to leave. At least that way, you can base your decisions on logic and fact, not folklore.
Before the technical trainer left her large corporate employer for a smaller consulting firm, she, too, assumed that she'd have to take a significant hit on the money. In fact, the firm's offer did come in $5,000 short. She was so sure she'd have to take a pay cut, she didn't think about negotiating for more. After some coaching, though, she was able to convince her new employer to meet her salary demands. What's more, she was told they would have been disappointed in her if she hadn't counter-offered.
So much for her assumptions!
As a professional, your first goal should be to build the most impressive skill set possible so you can command more money in the marketplace. Your second task is to research and target companies that can really capitalize on the things you have to offer.
During interviews, you must do your utmost to convince hiring managers of the value you bring with you. Once you show you can solve their organizational problems, you can explain how much it will cost them.
Lie 4. Maybe Things Will Get Better
If you wait them out, some work situations do improve. But it depends on how or why they got worse.
Nine years ago, a human resources generalist joined a major healthcare corporation. Six months later, she was involved in her first reorganization. Although she survived with her job intact, her workload virtually doubled overnight.
"Don't worry," her manager told her. "Things will get better."
That was more than eight years ago. Since then, she's been through five different restructurings. Whenever she wasn't personally affected, she was laying others off.
She just can't get excited about these changes anymore. She's heard lies too many times. Still, she's reluctant to leave. She has nine years in-long enough to know her way around the system and feel comfortable with lots of people. Besides, she's still convinced she can find a safe part of the company that won't be restructured.
Lie 5. It's My Fault I'm Not Happy
Blaming yourself for not liking your job won't solve any problems. If you want to take more responsibility for your happiness, you need to think in terms of "mismatch," not faultfinding. Trying to understand why your job, company or field doesn't suit your needs will help you redirect your energies toward creating a better match.
For example, a social worker found the family counseling center she worked at too much like a dysfunctional family, with everyone over-involved in everyone else's business. While most of her co-workers loved the "family feeling" of the place, she felt guilty for wanting an atmosphere that encouraged more professionalism and greater independence. Eventually, she came to realize that leaving the agency was like growing up and leaving home. At a certain time in life, it's definitely the right thing to do. Once she figured that out, she knew it would be crazy to stay.
You can come up with a million (untrue) reasons why you can't leave a situation you dislike. But when you deny reality (or the depth of your unhappiness), it has a way of catching up with you. If you do nothing to remedy the situation you hate, there's a good chance you'll end up being terminated. You may try to hide your feelings from co-workers, but negativity has a way of seeping out when you least expect it. Most of us don't have very good poker faces.
This is exactly what happened to a sales rep with an aluminum siding company who wanted to work in a more glamorous industry. While he vacillated about whether to stay or to go, he stopped paying enough attention to his numbers. They dipped way below quota, and before he realized what was happening, he had three months of severance pay and carte blanche to find something that suited him better.
Likewise, an office manager was so bored with performing the same old duties day in and day out that she could barely manage to drag herself to the office in the morning, and never before 9:30. From there, it was a short step to long lunch hours and even longer weekends. Only a Neanderthal could have missed her lack of motivation. Like the sales rep, she got her walking papers along with three months' pay to figure out what she wanted to do next.
