5 Lies Bad Bosses Tell To Hold You Back

Bad bosses want you to chase a higher salary and a better job title.

This is how they keep you in your place.

They know that salary increases and title promotions are ladders to nowhere. Yet, they encourage you to pursue them.

Keep your head down and work hard, then you'll be successful. Then you'll get a promotion and be able to live the good life.

They're lying to you.

A large-scale survey by Monster and a second large-scale survey by the Pew Research Center found that most people now define success as flexibility.

A global report by Accenture showed that flexibility came in ahead of money, recognition and autonomy as the most important determining factor of success.

Flexibility, the ability to work when you want and how you want, is the new status symbol.

But bad bosses don't want to give you flexibility. They want to control you.

They want to force you to do what they want, when they want you to do it.

To keep you in your place, these bad bosses distract you with small salary increases, ad hoc job title changes, and other shiny objects.

They also tell you stories.

Bad bosses tell you stories with cute little anecdotes about how they became successful by doing what they were told, staying in line, following the rules, and paying their dues. 

If you want to be successful, you have to stop believing these lies.

Stop Climbing Ladders To Nowhere 

Don’t chase something that will make you miserable if you catch it. 

The U.S. Census Bureau shows that the average annual income of people 25 years old or older is $32,140.

The average annual pay raise is 3%. From 2004 to 2014, the average inflation rate was 2.6%.

That's right—if you get an average promotion every year then you're just barely staying ahead of inflation. 

You're really only getting a 0.4% salary increase.

At this rate...

If you make $32,140 a year, your promotion will only make you an extra $128.56/year or $10.71/month.

If you make $100,000 a year, your promotion will only make you an extra $400/year $33.33/month.

Even if you make $250,000 a year, your promotion will only make you an extra $1,000/year or $83.33/month.

And that's before taxes. 

Gross. 

What are you going to do with an extra $10.71 per month? What are you going to do with an extra $83.33 per month? 

Get a moderately priced car that will sit in your office’s parking lot for 12 hours a day?

Save it all and take a 3-day trip to Las Vegas?

Then what?

You’re right back to where you started—desperately navigating your way through mediocrity.

5 Myths That Are Holding You Back

The only way to break free from mediocrity is to change what you’re chasing.

You have to stop chasing outdated status symbols like annual salaries and job titles.

You have to stop listening to lies that bad bosses tell you. Here are the top 5 lies you need to forget...

1. If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.

Quitting can be a successful strategy.

Just because you start a book or a movie doesn’t mean you have to finish it. The same is true for anything in life. 

If you get into a job that’s clearly not a good fit for you, don’t keep trying to make it work.

All this does is keep you from finding the career that’s really right for you.

The key is learning to differentiate plateaus and normal sticking points from permanent mismatches.

Stop trying to force a square peg into a round hole.

Instead, quit. Then...

Go find some square holes to fill.

In the same way, stop wasting your time trying to repair your weaknesses and start leveraging your natural strengths.

Be very selective with your time, energy, and resources. Don’t keep throwing them at something that’s not right for you.

Don’t let pride keep you from quitting and don’t let others guilt you into trying again and again.

The real secret to success is giving up as soon as you realize you're never going to get the results you want back on your investment.

2. Ideas are the starting points of all fortunes.

Ideas don’t matter anymore. They’re a dime a dozen—here today, gone today.

When it comes to success, action is the limiting factor, not ideas.

Ideas are commodities now, they’re sold in online stores and traded on the stock market.

In a sense, this has always been the case. Ideas, hopes, and dreams have always been ubiquitous.

The only thing that differentiates a good idea from a bad idea is someone taking action to turn that idea into a reality.

There are so many ideas now that it’s impossible to tell which ideas are good and which are bad. The only way to tell is to take action—to test the idea in real world scenarios.

This means creating minimum viable products and getting them to market as quickly as possible, not sitting through another ridiculous brainstorming meeting with your boss and 10 other people just because your boss gets off on the power trip of sitting at the head of the conference table. 

Action is the starting point of all fortunes.

Testing, tweaking, and iterating are now the most important parts of launching anything, from a book to a computer to an air conditioning unit.

3. Security will give you freedom.

Too many employees and people in general are drunk on security.

They stay in relationships that make them feel like they’re drowning because they like the security of having someone to talk to.

They stay at jobs that kill their creativity and require them to sit in cubicles all day long because they like the security of a steady paycheck and below average health insurance.

Most people will never stand up to their bosses. Most people will never start their own businesses.

They're too afraid of conflict. They're too afraid of risk.

Are you afraid?

People don’t get to the top by playing it safe. They get to the top by breaking the rules, taking risks, and going against the comfort of the crowd.

The more you value security, the less you'll have of it. Instead, bad bosses and negative colleagues will use your need for security against you. 

The only way to avoid this fate is to change your values. Stop valuing security and start valuing flexibility, independence, and new experiences. 

4. Never burn any bridges.

You can't build a successful career by maintaining bridges that connect you to negative people.

This kind of bridge maintenance drains energy and resources.

Bridges to negative people are distractions. They’re eyesores that need to be burnt to the ground.

The colleague who complains every day at lunch, the middle manager who berates you whenever he's stressed, the boss who refuses to acknowledge your performance...

Get rid of them. 

Eat at your desk, transfer divisions, or change jobs. Do whatever it takes to eliminate negative people from your career.

Stop being afraid of losing connections that deep down you know will never help you. 

Instead, open your eyes to all of the other positive and like-minded people you can work with in the world.

5. Good things come to those who wait.

People who tell you to wait your turn are manipulating you. 

What they're really saying is slow down so you don't move ahead of me.

The biggest lie that bad bosses tell to hold you back is that you'll be rewarded for your patience and loyalty. 

They tell you stories of how they spent 20 years climbing the ladder from the mail room until one day, magically, someone anointed them for an executive position. 

Don't believe these lies. 

No one is going to choose you. Nothing good is waiting for you. 

If you think you’re on your way to some defining moment just because you’re doing all the right things, you’re wrong.

If you think someone is going to come along one day and choose you for the position of your dreams, you're deluded. 

Anything you want, you have to create. Then, once you've created it, you have to make it yours and fight to keep it. 

Waiting is not the answer to your problems.

Slow and steady doesn’t win the race.

Slow and steady loses the race and then gets run over again and again by people hustling towards their dreams.

Now it's your turn...

Which of the above lies have you been told? Which lies do you disagree with? Tell me in a comment below.

I also write for Fast Company and Entrepreneur Magazine:

• The Skills You Need To Grow Your Business
• 10 People Who Will Destroy Your Business
• 5 Benefits Of Being A Misfit Entrepreneur

Check out my book of personal and professional advice, Black Hole Focus: How Intelligent People Create A Powerful Purpose For Their Lives.