I've got a lot of mileage out of this Employment Hack:
Treat your job as an unimportant thing that's easily replaced, as opposed to your Career that's Important and Fragile and something that you should never ever mess with for worry of ruining your entire life.
If you're not sweating your Career, you're more likely to do silly things like take too much vacation, even long sabbaticals. You're more likely to stand up to silly policies in your Big Company and even find ways to work them to your advantage. If things start going downhill, you'll be more likely to simply bail and go find someplace better.
But if you get into this space where you worry that you're going to be laid off at the first little screwup, and that will mean you have to move into a cardboard box and ask for spare change at the offramp, you're only going to get deeper and deeper into that space until you're stuck. And you're going to cling to your crappy job as though life depended on it while they keep treating you worse and worse.
I have thoroughly employable friends in their 30s who live in constant fear of being laid off, and it's ruining their lives. And I have the example of myself, who didn't sweat it too much, spent the better part of his 30s on the beach with a laptop, and seemingly landed on his feet, more employable than ever.
It's just a job. Try not to give it too much importance.
Yes. At least, the kid part should happen in the next week or so.
I imagine you bring it up because losing your job is a much bigger deal when you have a family and expensive stuff. I'd counter that it's only a big deal if you're not certain that you can pick up a new job any time you want.
The best way to acquire that certainty is to spend the first several years of your career proving it to yourself.
- don't sweat your career, make a name for yourself
- find yourself on the market for whatever reason
- immediately get snapped up
- repeat
If you're provably good at what you do, jobs are plentiful. Enough so that losing one doesn't really do much aside from forcing you to grab a better one.
This rings true with me. Although yet to hit the heights that you have, I treat my job as just that. Not a matter of life and death. Its especially true when you realize how quickly you will be replaced when you go.
I left my job after 3.5 years back in December. Leading up to giving my notice was the most stressful time in my career. Then, after 15 minutes of a professional conversation (and then 3 hours of friendly chit chat about starting my own company) the stress was gone. It's not a big deal. Two weeks later, I was free. I'm still on great terms with them, and even get jokes from my old boss about coming back some day and ending my 'poverty strike.' :)
It's really not a big deal to anyone but that fearful little voice in your head.
Treat your job as an unimportant thing that's easily replaced, as opposed to your Career that's Important and Fragile and something that you should never ever mess with for worry of ruining your entire life.
If you're not sweating your Career, you're more likely to do silly things like take too much vacation, even long sabbaticals. You're more likely to stand up to silly policies in your Big Company and even find ways to work them to your advantage. If things start going downhill, you'll be more likely to simply bail and go find someplace better.
But if you get into this space where you worry that you're going to be laid off at the first little screwup, and that will mean you have to move into a cardboard box and ask for spare change at the offramp, you're only going to get deeper and deeper into that space until you're stuck. And you're going to cling to your crappy job as though life depended on it while they keep treating you worse and worse.
I have thoroughly employable friends in their 30s who live in constant fear of being laid off, and it's ruining their lives. And I have the example of myself, who didn't sweat it too much, spent the better part of his 30s on the beach with a laptop, and seemingly landed on his feet, more employable than ever.
It's just a job. Try not to give it too much importance.