If you’re not worrying about finding a new job, maybe you’re thinking about how you can keep the one you have. Right? Well…maybe.
The truth is, when we’re in a stable career position, our brains seem to “lock-in.” And, we end up spending a lot of emotional energy trying NOT to think about losing our jobs – we can’t; we can’t let ourselves go there, so we don’t.
And, when things are going well, but we’re itching for more…more money, more autonomy, more something…we can get a little brazen and start pondering the idea of looking around.
It’s an interesting pull. When were “in” we yearn to be out, but when we fear we might be kicked out, we hold on and lock-in.
Actually, the conflicting emotion we’re feeling is called Loss Aversion. Research has shown that loss aversion has a greater impact on people than gain does, and that people will work harder to avoid a loss than to attain gain.
This psychological phenomenon is so powerful that in some countries automobile drivers are assigned points, for example – 12, at each renewal period. If they break the law, they lose points instead of gain points as in the US system.
Perhaps there is an upside to all of this. Maybe locking-in can make us more attentive to what we have. Maybe when we do, we discover a new sense of pride in our strengths and work harder to manage our weaknesses.
Maybe, we end up seeing the goodness in our peers instead of trying to find fault – fault that used to confirm it’s not a good place to work. Maybe we really know how fortunate we are to have stable income.
Maybe we remember a time when we thought or said the words, “get a job” and now we are ashamed of our actions because we see, it’s just not that easy.
Or just maybe, the fear of loss will help us become more aware as humans and more valuable as employees – which kind of sounds like, job security to me.
Kahneman, D. and Amos T. (1979). Prospect Theory: An Analysis of Decision Under Risk, Econometrica, XLVII, 263-291.