5 Ways To Tell If You Are Settling For Less In The Workplace.

5 ways to tell if you are settling for less in the workplace.
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Nikki Thomas Coaching

Throughout my younger years of study I believed that as long as I studied what I enjoyed surely that would give me a job that I enjoyed. It sounds pretty simple doesn’t it…

However, when I graduated I was repeatedly told to “just to get a job”. It wasn’t so much about what job (given the job market about a decade ago) but as long as I got one then I had achieved.

I watched as my graduate year and I hunted through graduate schemes and taking anything we could in order to build our careers and make something of ourselves. I sat year after year with friends in wine bar after wine bar drowning our sorrows with the latest tale of work politics and drama hoping that one day we would make/save enough money to leave our brain numbing, crazy jobs behind.

I desperately moved from working as a wedding planner to organising international conferences - anything to try and figure out what was the right job for me. It wasn’t easy and I was repeatedly seen as the typical millennial – over-privileged and never happy.

In fact for a brief while I wondered if there was something wrong with me. I questioned if my expectations were too high. Everyone moans about their jobs so is it impossible to have a job that I enjoy? I read books and articles by Steve Jobs, Sheryl Sandberg, Richard Branson and I could read the passion in the text when they spoke of their careers. I wanted that.

I knew deep down I could have that – I just needed to figure out how.

So I scaled back. I thought back to the girl who was picking her A Levels, the girl who chose her subjects based on her love for psychology. The girl who believed she could do a job she loved. Whenever I met with psychologists I was impressed. I used to tell myself I would go back into that area again in the future (when I was older...). So that’s what I did. I went back to my psychology roots and found my values again.

I went back into study for a coaching diploma and started my own coaching business where I helped people find passion in their career. I was overwhelmed by the amount of people who got in touch with me.

People who felt unfulfilled. People who felt lost. People who just didn’t know where to turn and wanted support.

People who, like me, had settled and didn’t want to settle any more.

People who believed they couldn’t change jobs without taking a substantial pay cut (which they couldn’t afford to do)…..and is a myth.

Repeatedly, people got in touch feeling trapped and I realised that with coaching I could find out what they really wanted from their career and the ‘excuses’ that held them there. I was able to change perceptions of what they thought they had to have to be happy and find out exactly what they really wanted.

This year has been life-changing for me and for them. A chance to change belief systems and I can’t believe so many people were (like me) desperately seeking support and answers on how to love their careers, how to have it all, and how to have the life they had always dreamed of.

So why have people spoken out now? Why are things changing?

I personally think that with the increase of social media people are becoming more and more exposed to other people’s belief’s and realities.

We now can see that more and more people are working from home, more people are demanding the ‘freedom lifestyle’ and people are starting to make their jobs work for them and documenting it. They are successful in their careers, they know what they want and they demonstrate that if it is possible for them it is possible for ‘you’.

The so-called corporate ladder is starting to disintegrate as people are starting to run their careers like entrepreneurs. It’s easier now than ever before to apply for a job in any part of the world. There is now an abundance of jobs at the tip of our smartphone.

We are also aware that we no longer gain anything from staying in a job that we don’t like. Retirement benefits are no longer a reason to stay, job security is OK but we can easily get a job elsewhere. Job loyalty isn’t like it used to be. People want more from the work place than basic survival and a lot of companies are waking up to that and delivering. Therefore, why be in a job that can’t look after and offer a better quality of life to its employees.

So how do you know if you are settling? Well let’s see if any of the below sounds familiar:

  • Are you forcing yourself to get up every morning and keep telling yourself work will get better soon? If you aren’t genuinely feeling happy then you really need to question the reasons why.
  • You aren’t grateful for what you have at the moment but telling yourself you probably don’t need more things in your life anyway.
  • When you talk about what you have given to your employer rather than the enjoyment/achievement/skills you have taken away.
  • When discussion topics amongst friends and family are more linked to why you choose to stay rather than why you have no interest to leave at this time.
  • When you spend more time complaining about said job rather than appreciating it.

If this sounds like you then you need to question what you want for 2017.

Many people still tell themselves "I hate my job, but it pays the bills and gives me the chance to do things I love outside of work" (I used to be one of these people) but I would then go home and spend the rest of the evening recovering from another depressing workday in front of the TV. How many of us resign to Netflix at the end of a busy working day?

This seriously wasn’t that long ago but in terms of my lifestyle change I feel like a completely different person. I am not one to tell you how to live your life but if the above statements resonate then I ask you – why are you settling? Why don’t you value yourself enough to have a job and lifestyle that you truly love?

A famous quote by Tony Robbins became my mantra when I made some massive changes in my life. “You Get What You Tolerate.”

“You Get What You Tolerate”

I used to ‘tolerate’ a lot – then I made the call to stop tolerating life and start creating exactly what I wanted. When I did that, big changes started to happen. My goals became ambitious…and I hit every single one of them. It’s all about a change in perspective and surrounding yourself around the right people. People who believe and support you. Remove all toxic people out of your life and watch your self-belief grow almost overnight.

Settling isn’t always a bad thing but if you choose to settle for the wrong reasons (and I see this with clients all the time) then you will always have a niggling feeling asking why you didn’t just go for it. The reason many of us settle is because of fear, low self-worth, and a so-called easy life (trust me on this one ‘better the devil you know’ is not the easy option). The issue is that it will play on your mind. Whether it is going for that promotion, making that career change or building your own side-hustle. So as we approach 2017 I ask you to ‘Try for it’. You have nothing to lose yet so much to gain and really the only person who stands between you and what you really want is ‘You’.

Want to know where to start? Download my free 7 Week Career Planner and start taking control of where you want your career to go. Stop Settling.

Want to surround yourself with other like-minded ambitious professionals then join an ambitious, like-minded, career community here:

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