Edition 66 - Are you satisficing?

We're back with Pondering Careers again and this week we're going to be asking the question - are you uncomfortable with being comfortable enough?

As humans, our thinking processes tend to prefer efficiency over depth (read Thinking, Fast and Slow for more on this), and this can lead us to being just a little bit lazy at times - allergic to thinking any more about something than we absolutely need to.

I know I am like this because of how much it hurts me deep inside when someone in the family wants to upend my plans for dinner, even when nothing has been made or even purchased - I'm simply mourning the fact that I'll be forced to think about it again.

And, despite the gravity of the decision, this same tendency to rush to a good enough solution - to satisfice - often appears in the bigger decisions we make in life, like which job to take, or even who to spend our lives with.

So, fair warning, this is a pretty chunky topic and if I write it well then there's a chance I may even make you feel a little bit uncomfortable (sorry about that).

Before we begin...

I wanted to give a quick shoutout to the incredible Chris Webb on his 100th Edition of The Week In #Careers, which just happens to be one of my favourite LinkedIn newsletters - if you're not already subscribed and reading Chris's articles then pop over and get yourself signed up now.

In his latest edition he shared a conversation we had a few months back about how frequently we should be publishing these kinds of newsletters. Originally, I wrote weekly, because I figured that was what made most sense.

But, these editions tend to take about 4 hours to write, and as I can't just carve 4 hours out of my normal workday that often meant getting up earlier than I would have liked to get them written.

Eventually, I caved and went to fortnightly, which has actually been great, because I find I'm enjoying the writing more now, and I can bring more energy to the work as it's not such a weekly grind.

Anyway, I shared with Chris that I'd dropped back to fortnightly and he has since done the same, but in his 100th episode he also mentioned that the very clever Lis McGuire RCDP had suggested putting the contents of each newsletter in the title card to make it easier for people to scan and find articles they wanted to read.

This is a brilliant idea - for the first 20 or so editions I didn't even put the topic in the title, so even I don't really know what's in the first editions of Pondering Careers, but all that changes now, as you'll be able to see from my new and improved title card/cover image.

So, thanks Chris and Lis, and if anyone has any other ideas for improving/tweaking Pondering Careers please send them my way, and in the meantime we'll return to our regularly scheduled newsletter.

I'm not suggesting we all become perfectionists

I remember being in about Year 3 and being told that 'Perfect is the enemy of Good' (probably because I was displaying early signs of my perfectionist tendencies), and I think it's important to start with the key point that, while talking about the problems inherent in satisficing, we are not suggesting that perfection is the desired alternative.

Striving for perfect is great when you have the time, support, and freedom to do so, but unless the stars align, most of us are going to need to make some compromises along the way.

Instead, in this edition I'm really talking about how

Good is the enemy of the great...

- Jim Collins

What Jim is saying here is that because what we have is good enough, whether that's our jobs, our relationships, our businesses, our governments, or our schools, we rarely strive for something which is truly great.

Satisficing happens when we stop the decision making process when we find a solution that both satisfies and suffices.

Rather than continuing on until we find the best possible outcome, we're looking for something in the zone of good enough.

In theory, this means we make efficient decisions that allow us to move forward quickly without getting bogged down in obsessing over the details, but I find that in reality it often means we stop the process as soons as we've reached a decision that is barely good enough, and in some cases, we may even bring down our ideas about what we consider to be satisfactory in order to get the job done (aka cutting corners).

Short term gain can (sometimes) lead to long term discomfort

We only get one life, which gets at the heart of the problem - do you really want to spend years or even decades of your life in a situation that's only just good enough?

Me neither.

And what often happens when we make these kind of semi-OK decisions is that we come to regret them down the track. We find ourselves not really in love with what we do, not as motivated or engaged as we probably could be, and we often daydream about what else might be possible.

Most of us never go beyond the daydreaming; after all, we're actually pretty comfortable, but we stop short of going all-in and making the choice an integral part of who we are. Let me put it into some visuals:

Imagine this is you, and you're currently an Accountant,

You don't hate your job, it pays pretty well, you're pretty good at it, and you get to feel smart when you help people and use complicated spreadsheets, but it was never really your dream job.

When you were young, you'd always dreamed of being a pilot, but:

• flight school was a bit out of your budget,
• your family thought that accounting would be safer, and
• you'd always been pretty good at maths,

so it made sense that you ended up here, but you still thought that you would have been an amazing pilot.

That's because you've built your identity around the traits of pilots. Pilots are pretty impressive; they get paid lots of money to fly big aircraft to exotic places, taking responsibility for lots of people, and looking pretty slick while they're at it.

Note: this isn't necessarily the reality for many pilots, but that's not what's important - all that matters is your image of them.

You see yourself as sharing those traits, so you identity is aligned more with being a Pilot than being an Accountant, which puts a bit of a barrier between where you are and where you think you should be.

That good enough decision you made when you left school is still good enough, but now that you're a few years down the track you're still stuck with working in a job that doesn't feel as much like 'you'.

While that barrier remains, you can continue to feel that you more closely align with the other option, but that circumstances have gotten in your way.

Removing that barrier is the only way to reconciling the two, which then allows you to move forward and stop thinking about what else might be possible, but that's not an easy process, because removing that barrier means changing how you see yourself - literally changing your identity and leaning in to the positive aspects of what you're actually doing.

We'll talk about this more in a minute, and we'll also look at what happens when you go the other way, and move towards how you see yourself, but before we do that let's think about why we can find ourselves in this kind of situation.

#1 - A good enough opportunity came along too early

Ever had someone offer you something that looked pretty amazing, but you didn't feel ready for?

I'm all for being open to new opportunities, but sometimes it's easy to get swept up in the bright and shiny that's right in front of you when you may be better off taking a step to the side.

I've seen this happen time and time again in people's career trajectories, and sometimes that unexpected opportunity is what catapulted them into a role they love, but often that's not how it works.

I worked with a client not that long ago who'd been given a great opportunity very early on in his career, before he'd even really finished his training. It was one of those opportunities that were only kind of optional, like he could have turned it down, but that might have had implications for what was offered to him in the future. The problem was that it meant he had to switch paths from the one he had been focusing on. When we spoke, he was around ten years down the track from this decision point and still wished he'd stuck to his original path.

Now, it's important to note that we have no real idea if he would have been happier if he had stuck to his guns, but that's not really the point, because he still felt like he'd taken the good enough option, instead of the path he really wanted.

#2 - The option you picked wasn't what you expected

We ask young people to start to specialise when they pick their senior subjects at around 15 years old, which is a bit early to be making any decisions that lock them in, in my opinion, but the end result of the gradual process of specialisation is that you can sometimes find yourself going down a path that wasn't really what you wanted or expected.

This is particularly common with people who end up in management - they started out in a role that suits them, then slowly find themselves doing less of that core work as they spend more time in team meetings and strategy sessions, when one day they realise that they've drifted quite a way from where they really wanted to be.

#3 - You stuck with an early decision

Some of us make a choice and then stick with it, regardless of the impacts. I'm starting to wonder if my own son, Lincoln, is in danger of going down this path.

He's said he wanted to be a doctor since he was very little. He devoured Kay's Anatomy: A complete (and completely disgusting) guide to the human body and has always been keen to help when anyone is hurt, so it kind of makes sense, but at the same time he's not done a lot of exploration of what else could be possible. Granted he's still in Year 8, with lots of time to change, but I'd like to see him more open to at least learning about other options, rather than defaulting to 'doctor' all the time.

I find that people in this situation are often the hardest to help, especially if the job is meeting many of their other needs, because they've stuck with the decision for so long.

What we can do about it

If you think you might be in this situation, or you suspect you're working with someone who is, there are two steps to follow (if you want to get out of it, that is):

Step 1 - Recognise what's happening

Unless you can recognise what's happening, and see it for what it is, there's not a lot of chance you're going to actually make a change.

Generally, we only make a change in our lives when we get really uncomfortable. I heard a metaphor on one of those leadership podcasts Rob Sattler ????♂? makes me listen to on long drives once which explains it pretty well:

We don't move when we're comfortable. If we're sitting in front of a heater and we're too hot, we'll move away. If we're too cold we'll move closer to the heater. But if we're neither too hot or too cold then it's unlikely we'll make a move...

Except if we run out of tea/wine/snacks. Then I'll move without delay.

Recognising what's happening can actually make us feel less comfortable about it, and shift us out of our stasis either forwards or backwards, which leads me into step 2...

Step 2 - Lean in or move away

You really have two options in this scenario, and the path you take will probably be determined by what it is that's actually happening. If your current position:

• is secure,
• pays what you need,
• is in a place you like, or with people you like, and
• is pretty close to where you want to be,

then it probably makes more sense to try to lean in to what you're already doing and see why it matters.

On the other hand, if you're not really enjoying what you're doing for a multitude of reasons, or if you just can't let go of another idea, then you might need to move away and try something new. This option is likely to be more successful where:

• your values don't align with your current position,
• you have limited ability to change up or tweak how you work, or
• you have limited ability to take on more aligned tasks or roles within what you're currently doing.

To lean in, you really need to focus on the positives. Think about all those things that attracted you to the role in the first place (besides convenience), and identify all of the ways you are good at your job. It's also really helpful to think about how your work fits into the bigger picture - who do you help with your work, and how do they benefit?

At the same time, you need to cease exploring other options to give yourself the chance to really find what you like about what you're currently doing. This doesn't mean you can never consider any other option again, just that, for now, you're going to make an effort to stop yourself daydreaming about what else is possible.

You should also be actively looking for ways you can take on new tasks or change up what you do at work, and this is known as Job Crafting. Is there a new project you'd like to work on, is there a problem you'd like to solve, can you speak with your manager about what's happening... all of these things can help you structure your work so it suits you and matches how you see yourself.

If you're keen to move away, then the process will be more about a. making yourself uncomfortable and b. giving yourself permission.

You'll need to be uncomfortable enough in your current choice that you actually have the energy and motivation to make the move, and this isn't always easy. Golden Handcuffs are a real issue, and not one to be dismissed lightly, so if salary or standard of living is a concern then that is likely to be what you need to address first.

At the same time, the cost of living is a real concern and if changing career path to satisfy your identity comes at the expense (literally) of not being able to pay the rent then you may want to return to the first option and lean into what you're doing instead, for now at least.

The second element of moving away from what you're doing is in giving yourself permission to do so. As I said pretty early on in this article you only have one life, and if you're serious about changing paths then allowing yourself the freedom to make the change is crucial.

Whichever option you choose, it may turn out to be better than doing nothing at all.

To return to my original question, are you satisficing?

I was, for a very long time.

In the end, I needed to stop resisting falling in love with my work, and once I did everything got easier.

Letting go of my teenage dreams wasn't exactly easy; I'd always wanted to design haute couture, and I cried when I walked through the Iris van Herpen show in Brisbane last year because she's the same age as me and has basically lived out my dream.

The differences between Iris and myself are many, however; not the least of which is that she had the courage (and financial support) to go out and make her dreams a reality.

So, to move past this I focused on the impact my own work has and who I can help, and I also thought about the things I do well. I also give myself permission to enjoy art and design, rather than trying to ignore it entirely, and I tell myself I'll have plenty of time to make art once I stop working in career development.

One of my favourite artists and role models is Rosalie Gascoigne, who didn't start exhibiting work until she was almost 60, so I have hope for another big career pivot later in my life.

If this article has got you wondering if you might be living your own good enough decision, then I hope you can take something of value from it.

Maybe start with working out what your Career Cluster is. You can do that here.