#103 June 29th, 2023
Blake Carroll, CPA
PwC People Team - Manager | Helping Aspiring CPAs Navigate the CPA Exam with Confidence
Should you stay or should you go? This article analyzes the trade off between staying loyal to your current company versus job hopping to explore new opportunities. This has been a very relevant question ever since Covid turned the labor market on its head. There are lots of different factors at play, and there probably will not be a clear-cut answer to what is the best course of action. Staying with a company can be beneficial if it gives you the opportunity to help build and grow something small into something larger. This will probably be more true with start ups and smaller companies as opposed to huge well-established corporations.
People who job hop too frequently may find it working against them one day if no one wants to hire them due to realistic fears that they will just be gone within a year. People may switch jobs and come to realize they did not fully understand their new corporate culture, the idea that the grass is not always greener on the other side once you get over there. It’s not uncommon for people to make a switch and later regret it. But staying put can work against you at times though if it keeps you stuck in a rut within the same position, as opposed to stepping into new learning and growth opportunities. Fear of making a change may result in you missing out on a new experience that could have been even better than your current job. A sense of loyalty may lead to an employee putting up with a toxic situation. Loyalty shouldn’t be more important than your mental and overall well-being. Employee loyalty may also result in lower compensation because companies generally have to pay more to get people to switch. It seems counterintuitive to actually reward your experienced employees less, but that is often what happens.
At the end of the day, every situation is unique, and you have to figure out what you want your life to look like, but this article has good things to think about!?
I am a huge planner so this article really resonated with me. People like planning because it gives us certainty, it can diminish our perception of the unknown and make us feel safe. Planning isnt bad by nature, but it can become bad if it leads to us becoming inflexible when things don’t go according to plan. At that point it can become a net negative. Think about how many plans you’ve created that had to change. When do things ever go perfectly according to plan? Part of life is learning how to respond and react when things don’t go the way we expect them to. Now how many times did things not go according to plan but they actually turned out better than you could have imagined? I bet some of the best things in your life are things you didnt plan for. So what’s the lesson here? We can’t control if things will go like we plan. What we do control is how we react and how we respond. Fear or excitement. Negativity or optimism. We can choose to make the most of whatever happens.?
领英推荐
This article explores why defining success as more wealth, fame, or status, will actually keep you further from real success. You can never have enough of those things to fully satisfy you. There is never a finish line with those measures. There will always be someone you could compare yourself to that has more than you, unless you’re Elon Musk. Traditional success measures put you on the never ending hedonic treadmill. Only focusing on money or career advancement can also make you lose the joy in your work and your craft. Initially, you get into a passion or hobby simply because you enjoyed it, but then if it becomes about earning and productivity it most likely will not be as fun. It may not be worth it to achieve your goals if you’re not enjoying your day to day as you work toward them. We all must define success for ourselves, not as the world defines it.
A lot of people may identify as a perfectionist and hold themselves to an impossibly high standard. I think the modern era of social media driven comparison has made perfectionism more common place because it has increased how much we feel like we are on display and being judged by other people for how we perform. We are always trying to impress others or seeing where we don’t measure up to others. It can be powerful to realize that the root of perfectionism is fear. Not just fear of failing, but fear of being watched by others as we fail. It’s kind of ironic to fear others watching us mess up rather than the consequences of the mess up itself. But people are probably not paying as much attention to you as you think they are because they are actually worried about themselves and what others think of them. This mental bias is known as the spotlight effect.?
It’s also helpful to realize that we probably developed perfectionism as we were growing up in order to gain approval from our parents, teachers, or peers. There are some good effects because it can drive you to work hard, but there is a point that it becomes detrimental as it leads to so much pressure on ourselves. Perfectionism can also hold you back because unless you know you can do something flawlessly you will not even attempt it. But it’s better to do some thing mostly right they never make an attempt at all. Therefore, perfectionism can keep you stuck because you are afraid to take any risk. It’s all about bringing awareness to the aspects of perfectionism at work against us. When we see how it is holding us back if it comes easier to break free from it.?
CPA exam tip: If you’re struggling with the CPA exam then I have a story for you:
After the CPA exam score release I saw a fantastic post about a professional who passed their first 3 sections all on their first try, but then ran into some serious difficulties with the audit section. It took 4 or 5 tries to pass, and their scores were all in the 70s including two 74 scores. So close so many times!
But what a story of perseverance! They probably were flying high and feeling good given all the initial success, but then that was flipped on its head by audit being such a challenge. But they showed if you have the endurance and discipline to stick with it and keep studying then eventually you will get there. Your doubts and struggles don’t mean you’re a failure. The only way to fail is to quit and give up!