But it doesn't mean that you need to continue to stay in a career path that
doesn't make sense or that doesn't light you up inside.
What is happening in your brain when you feel fear and anxiety during a career
change?
My name is Grace and I'm host of the Career Revisionist Podcast and founder of
Mastery Insights
where I help savvy professionals to create careers of significance and to expand
that into living a life of fulfillment.
One of the questions that I always ask my clients is one that explores their
reasons why
they believe that they haven't been able to move forward to achieve the things
that they want in their career.
And the most common response I get is that they are fearful. You know,
they're scared and the most
common things that people fear when they are trying to move forward in their
career path when they are trying to accelerate and grow their career,
one of the most common fears is the fear of failure, right?
And also the fear of a loss of income,
the fear of taking risks and the fear of the unknown, right?
So unfamiliar territory. These are the most common fears.
And when you think about it, our brains are
very powerful, calculating machines, right?
But because of that we are able, we are capable to think about
what is the purpose that we want.
What is the purpose of our life and what is the purpose of why we do what we do?
And as a result of having that capacity of our brains to be able to question its
own existence, it also gives rise to certain biases.
And it's these biases that give rise to fears and fears of the unknown
and fears of the things that we're scared of when we move towards our career
dreams. You see,
your brain is an intelligent decision making machine when it comes to deciding
what
the purpose of your life is and what you want the purpose and the goal of your
career path to be.
But at the same time, before we reach those logical centers,
when we are making decisions,
we are doing so from the logical executive centers of the brain.
But before that can happen,
we first address the emotional recesses of the brain.
We act based on emotions and it's these
emotional parts of our brain that give rise to cognitive biases.
So I'm going to talk to you about
three cognitive biases that result in the fears and anxieties that we face when
we're trying to move forward in our career path.
The first cognitive bias that is associated with your fears to career change is
something that I called the sunken cost fallacy.
And what that means is that you fear that all the time, the money,
the energy that you've invested into your career path so far is going to go to
waste.
And it makes sense.
I can understand how that could be a fear because it seems like, okay,
maybe you've worked 20 years to get to where you are right now.
You've invested in a college
education and you have done numerous projects. You have,
you have negotiated, you have worked really hard in your organization and now,
if your heart is telling you that you want a career change,
that you need a career change and that is what your soul is telling you that is
what it desires. And then you kind of feel like, well,
all this time I spent in my education and now I'm going a different direction.
Well, it is all going to go to waste. So that is understandable and it's not,
and it's not your fault that you feel that way because it may seem that way,
right? But it is a cognitive bias.
The sunken cost fallacy is a cognitive bias.
So if you find yourself continuing down a career path that doesn't
feel right and you feel stuck there only because you feel like it would be a
waste of your time and energy and your money to make a career change,
then it's time for reframe. Instead of looking at costs that
cannot be recovered look at what can be recovered. Remember,
all of the things that you've invested in yourself,
all the investments you made in your personal development,
in your professional development,
in your career path so far can be recovered and translated into a different
industry, everything. And it's,
an acknowledgement of all the achievements that you have achieved,
the person that you've
become and recognizing that none of those things, the person that you are today,
would not have been able to be possible if you hadn't have invested that time
and that energy, right?
So rather than thinking of it as a cost that cannot be recovered,
look at what is being recovered.
Look at what is going to be standing the test of time.
The truth is your time, money and your energy
that you've invested so far in your career path cannot be recovered cause you've
already invested it.
But it doesn't mean that you need to continue to stay in a career path that
doesn't make sense or that doesn't light you up inside, right?
Knowing that you've invested this time, money and energy in your
career path so far, it doesn't mean that you need to be regretful of it.
So find ways where you can
reconcile and you can understand the reasons why you made that investment and
make it worthwhile in the future. Find ways where,
how it can be worthwhile for a future investment that makes sense
given the context of who you are and the person that you have become.
Comment below. I want to hear from you.
What fears do you have when you think about a career change
or you think about the career path that you have ahead of you.
And if you'd like what I have and you like my content,
give me a thumbs up and remember to subscribe to my channel. Ring that bell.
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The second cognitive bias that is associated with your fears related to career
change is something called a confirmation bias.
This is where you seek for,
you interpret and you recall information that just
confirms your preexisting beliefs, right?
And it means that you tend to reject things that contradict your beliefs,
right? And while this may be perceived as having confidence,
what's really happening is that it's really an
unconscious choice to see only what you believe and therefore to stay within
your comfort zone.
So let me give you an example.
Many of the clients that I've worked with in the past, they have damaging
beliefs about their career progress. For example,
they might believe that it's not possible to change
careers once you are past the age of 50 and therefore this is their confirmation
bias.
And so therefore they would seek things and interpret things that would confirm
their preexisting beliefs
that it's harder to change careers once you're past 50 and when you seek
something, you will find it.
If that's what you believe and you are looking for affirmation whether you know
it or not, you are going to find it.
So the danger of this confirmation bias,
the danger of this cognitive bias is that the beliefs of this
nature are so strong that your brain is going to seek affirmation and then
therefore you're going to be rewarded for being correct.
And let me ask you something.
Is it better to be correct or is it better to make progress in your career?
Right? So the way to get around this,
the way to combat this cognitive bias of affirmation bias,
the way to do that is to go out there and give yourself permission to prove
yourself wrong. This takes courage of course,
because it's courage to admit that you're wrong. It's one thing to admit you're
wrong and another thing to actually look out for evidence to prove yourself
wrong. But this is what you need to do.
If you want to overcome this cognitive bias,
you have to go out there and to look at what's true, what is true?
Is that what you believe? Is that really true?
Look for evidence to prove that it's not true. And when you find that evidence,
ask yourself what is true, what else could be true, right?
And when you begin this exercise, you know,
don't forget to circle back and consider a new
perspective on career change,
once you've examined the new information you found to prove yourself wrong.
The third and final cognitive bias that is associated with your fears of having
a career change is
the belief that you are somebody with a job identity and that that identity
defines you as a person.
The thing is conventional wisdom defines career stability as being in a one job,
one job path for a long period of time.
And maybe this is what you have been told by your parents or by your teachers or
by institutions,
is that is the definition of career stability when you blended a job and you can
stay in it for as long as possible.
And what happens is when you've been told this over periods of time,
when that is the measure of career stability in your mind,
even though that's not what you truly value, but that is the value that has been
given to you and over time what happens is that your yearning,
your career yearnings to achieve
that picture of career stability tends to be associated with who you are as an
individual.
The problem with that conventional wisdom is that career these days,
modern day careers are not long tunnels.
They're not 20, 30 40 year long tunnels.
There more like micro careers where they're constantly changing. You know,
it's very hard to find someone these days in modern day career who has been
staying with the same company for 10 years. It's not very common anymore.
So when you associate career stability
with that image that conventional wisdom has painted for you,
what ends up happening is that your yearnings
for career change ends up being an existential disaster because it's associated
with an identity of who you are.
The truth is that who you are as a person is not related to what you do.
So in other words, what you do is your job, it's not your identity.
You are not what you do. You are who you are, not what you do.
The way to conquer this cognitive bias is to recognize that your career is not
made up of these long, daunting,
linear career paths,
and that you are who you are and that your identity is not tied to the job that
you own and the job that you want to have, right?
And the way to do that is to recognize and to acknowledge that you
can design your career path, any way that you want,
just by following your curiosity and by knowing the things that you value.
And by knowing what is important, what's truly important to you.