3 Ways You Might Be Self-Sabotaging Your Career Happiness
Are you sabotaging yourself? As a coach who works with high achievers to build more engaging, balanced careers, this is an alarming trend I’ve seen over the last 6 years. Way more people are doing this than they realize.
Are you guilty? Let’s do a deep-dive into the three most popular ways that people self-sabotage their careers so you can see:
1. Pseudo-committing
Pseudo-committing is, as you can probably infer from the name, when you pretend to commit to making a change without actually doing so. Often this happens when you’re scared to make a big move. You do something which enables you to pretend like you’re moving things forward (without actually moving things forward).
The two main ways that people pseudo-commit are via procrastination, and via what I call “collector mode”.
Procrastination enables individuals to say that they’re making a change while postponing the real work. In a career context, this may look something like planning to change jobs “in a couple of months when the timing is right”. If there’s a real reason why you should delay the job hunt, no problem! But if this timeline is self-made and is something entirely in your head, it might be a way to pseudo-commit, making you feel like you’ll change jobs eventually, without having to update the resume quite yet. See how that works?
Collector mode, on the other hand, is when you delay the inevitable by collecting information about a change. So, for example, if you’re looking to find more fulfillment within your career, this might look like reading books about purpose, taking endless quizzes on your strengths, and polling your friends about what they think would make you happier. Ultimately, though, you’re collecting tons of information about making the change without actually implementing the information, and as a result, you stay in a holding pattern.
It’s no surprise that pseudo-committing is so popular, since at the end of the day it functions as an emotional support blanket. It enables you to feel like you’re taking an active role in change without requiring the truly confronting work. Who wouldn’t like that?! It’s not effective, though, and pseudo-committing is one of the main ways that folks might be sabotaging their happiness.
2. The curse of the high achiever
“The curse of the high achiever” is a unique challenge that I see for many ambitious folks. It happens when they don’t have an internally driven direction or path for their career, so they end up taking opportunities as a result of what pops up.
High achievers often cement themselves as invaluable on their teams at work, and as a result, great opportunities can sometimes come their way. These are the people who get LinkedIn messages from old bosses saying, “as soon as my non-compete expires, I’m going to have you come work for me again”. While it’s an immense privilege, this gift can sometimes turn into a curse if said overachiever doesn’t have an idea of what is a “yes” for them in their career and what is a “no” for them. If they don’t have enough self-awareness or an internally derived purpose statement guiding them, they may end up taking opportunities that should have been graciously declined. Their career path ends up looking like a complete zig-zag, as it’s driven more by others than by themselves.
Continuity is essential within your career, so failing to know which opportunities are truly a good fit for you might be sabotaging your career happiness. Afterall, you can’t effectively say yes to anything if you say no to nothing.
3. Self-gaslighting
Last but not least comes self-gaslighting, one of the biggest offenders in the self-sabotage space. Self-gaslighting is where you attempt to talk yourself out of your (very real) career concerns. This often happens when people are scared to deal with the truth about their career dissatisfaction.
Self-gaslighting typically looks like hearing a small whisper of doubt in the back of your head, but ignoring it until the whisper turns into a full-on scream. You try to convince yourself to feel happier than you really are because “it’s not that bad”, or “this is what I thought I wanted”. Either way, you’re attempting to silence your concerns, and it’s hurting you in the long-run.
In my experience, as someone who has attempted this kind of self-gaslighting before, just because you ignore your doubts, it doesn’t mean they go away. Typically they simply build a build until they become unavoidable. By delaying listening to them, you’re actually hurting yourself in the long run. They evolve from something that might require a small repair into something that requires massive work to change. If you potentially could have just pivoted your existing job before to fix the issue, by ignoring the problem until it’s too late, you’ll likely have to change jobs all together because you allow the role to become so toxic that you feel driven to escape. It’s not ideal.
While self-gaslighting is a way to keep yourself safe and try to avoid the scary reality of change, you’re delaying the inevitable and making things worse in the end.
So, what do you think? Are you guilty of any of these 3 ways that people self-sabotage? Tell me in the comments!
If you’re struggling with any of the above, know that you’re not alone. These behaviors happen a lot. At the end of the day, though, if happiness and fulfillment in your career is important to you, you’ll need to move through them.
Bringing in the accountability of a coach or community is a great way to counter these challenges, so if you’re struggling with self-sabotage, consider getting support. It will help you commit to the change you’re looking for, and keep you honest and on track.
If you’re feeling like you need some additional support, our first small group cohort of Purpose Chaser School TOGETHER is starting next month. It provides you with a community for support, as well as individual coaching support from me, Chris. It’s a great way to commit to building a more fulfilling and engaging career, if you’re ready.
So, eager to finally find your purpose and find peace, so that you no longer have to second guess all of your career decisions? If so, click HERE to grab some time to explore joining us in TOGETHER. It will rock your world.
See you in there!
