I’ve recently returned to a team I worked on before. I’m 50 and don’t have any big career aspirations anymore, other than to make it to retirement. A senior position recently opened up on my team and I’d originally approached my (awesome) manager about what I needed to do to get it. But the additional duties aren’t things that I’d enjoy and frankly, my brain really doesn’t work that way. I told my manager that after looking at the job description and what the previous senior had been working on — and also, that I do actually enjoy what I’m doing now.
My manager responded that when she brought me back, it was really for what I AM doing because I’m good and strong at it. I felt good about that response at the time, but I’ve since found out that she wants to fill the role with a co-worker on another team. This person is fantastic. She’ll be great and my manager is excited about her joining our team.
But I’m also feeling a little like, “Why am I not good enough? Why is she better than me?” Even though I DON’T want the job. There’s also a bit of feeling like I’ll never get a bigger pay increase than the small cost-of-living, or a better desk by the window… Kind of a pitiful, professional FOMO.
Any way you could talk me off this ledge?
Andy: Yes, happily. Step back from that ledge! Get comfortable so you can bask in our admiration for saying, “No” to something you don’t want to do. You know yourself and are being true to that self.
Emma: Exactly! The whole reason it feels like you’re on a ledge is because you’re at the top of the mountain we’ve all been climbing for decades.
Andy: Take a deep breath. This is rarified air.
Emma: The downside of being at the top of the mountain is that you no longer get rewarded for climbing it. It sounds like you’re mourning the loss of those things: bigger raises, window seats, the rush of gunning for something and winning it — and the subsequent validation and accolades.
Andy: I have been there so often before, craving bigger, harder jobs and better money — in the same week that I told my partner I’ll work less and prioritize joy. And I have meant both things. It’s hard to say no, and keep saying no, when the system is built for yes. I love praise. I love excelling. If there’s a prize, I’m competing for it. I’ve been this way since Pizza Hut’s Book It! in the first grade.
Emma: Feeling good when you’re told you’re good is not unreasonable or weird or wrong. Often the only thing that gets me up in the morning is that I won’t get any words of affirmation for staying in bed all day.
But we don’t put much credence in the concept of “enough.” I didn’t know it even was a concept until a few years ago when Andy was talking about the book Your Money or Your Life. I started reading it and, early on, there’s a very stark graph showing fulfillment versus money spent. At the pinnacle is “enough” and at the far end of the X axis — the most money spent — is a tombstone. The book is about money, but I think about that graph when it comes to my career as well.
Andy: I remember when you read that. “A tombstone, Andy? A tombstone?!” I nodded my head all knowingly at the time, but it was actually that tombstone that shocked me out of the never-ending climb I had been on. Knowing what we want (and don’t want) to do is the only way to stop at the pinnacle and not careen down into our graves. It sounds to me like you’re stopping.
Emma: I love your decision to not go for the senior gig. I also understand why you feel anxious and kind of disappointed having made it. You’re craving a reward, but you tapped out of the system that was supplying the juice. Now you have to find new sources to rely on — including your own heart and brain.
I know how not great that sounds. And also kind of eye-rolly. It’s like being told that instead of ice cream for dessert, you get a nice tomato. While everyone else is having ice cream, you’re telling yourself, “This tomato is more delicious.”
Andy: I trust the tomato is going to start tasting really sweet. You don’t need extra sugar to make up for a job you don’t want to do.
How to Eat Tomatoes for Dessert (Or, How to Talk Yourself Off the Ledge)
Diversify your social circles
Emma: One of my big secret weapons battling work-related regrets is the people in my life who know what their “enough” is — whether or not they have reached it yet. They tend to have the most balanced lives, the most interesting hobbies, the least resentment toward their careers. They are the people who provide the affirmation I crave when I make decisions like the one you’re making. You need these people in your life. They make the mountaintop less lonely.
Andy: I’ve found these types of friends doing things I like out in the world — signing up for a neighborhood nature walk, going to an art opening, joining a book club, trying out an alumni event — and talking to the people there. When I only have friends from work, it’s a sign for me that I’m working too much…
Try a Total Package Swap
Andy: It’s easy for me to envy only the good parts of what someone else has. I’ll take the gold medal, but not the giving up my entire childhood to ice dancing. I want the new car, but not the car payment. So I like to do what I call the Total Package Swap: I imagine taking the entire package, and trading in what I currently have.
Emma: It’s a good way recognize when you’re cherry picking. If you take the senior role, you get the salary bump and the affirmation juice, but you take on responsibilities you don’t enjoy — and on top of that, you have to trade in parts of the job you have that you really like and feel great doing.
Andy: My inner critic loves to re-adjudicate my decisions to prove I’ve chosen the wrong thing. It’s easy ammo for it to look at only part of the equation and stir up a pot of regret. The TPS declaws my inner critic super fast.
Emma: Lol I love that it has its own acronym.
Watch the movie
Emma: There is a mental exercise I’ve done since high school when I’m feeling swirly about where things in my life are going. I pretend I’m watching a movie about me and I ask myself: What do I wish for that character right now? Do I want her to be in that senior role, staying late to work on stuff she never really wanted to do in the first place? Or do I want to see her leaving work at 4:53pm, strolling down a sunny street before we roll a montage of fabulously care-free evening activities to this Lizzo song?
Andy: I love that movie version of me. She’s so wonderful and hot dang!
Emma: You can make the movie go any way you want. Maybe she’s thriving in the new senior role and rolling around in all her bonus money on new silk sheets — that’s also pretty wonderful. Watching different aspects of my personality and mood play out in my mind’s eye can help give me the distance I need to get my priorities straightened out.
Andy: One last reminder before we go: This decision to not gun for this senior role doesn’t mean you’re committed to this version of “enough” for the rest of your career. There might be new opportunities that reveal themselves between now and retirement that inspire you to strap your boots back on.
Emma: Totally. The top of this mountain may be one of a few different peaks in the range.
Good Boss Achievement Stickers: Affirmation Edition
