job security
photo courtesy of Jean-Guy Nakars
If you stay in a job because you believe it offers you job security, but you are dissatisfied, unchallenged, or downright miserable, maybe this job isn’t so secure.
This job feels secure because you are fairly confident you will not get fired or laid off, and it provides a roof over your head and food on the table, but it might not provide you with personal security. What does that mean? It means emotional safety. When your needs aren’t being met in a job, your emotional being is compromised. You might feel sad, hopeless, frustrated, scared, and angry. There is a strong magnet holding you to your job and that magnet is normally fear driven by self-doubt.
I worked with a woman in therapy who felt trapped in job prison. When the alarm went off for work she pushed the snooze button one too many times to avoid returning to her daily shackles. This resulted in coming in late and sometimes calling in sick. She was miserable. She didn’t feel challenged or appreciated, and she was underpaid. Through our exploration of why she could not free herself, she admitted to having no self-confidence. This woman was strong, smart, attractive, caring, and personable, to name a few of her qualities, but she was blind to these aspects of herself. Part of her belief system was that she was inferior and unwanted. This often develops in childhood and is reinforced by people and circumstances in life, and by our own beliefs about ourselves and others. She was in a marriage that underscored her negative self-view. She did not have a college degree, which to her meant she was not marketable or valuable. So, in her mind, she had to stay in her “secure job” because she did not have the confidence to escape the prison walls so she could bask in the sunshine of a new job that offered her the enjoyment, challenge, fulfillment, and money she so deserved.
Over the next several months, we processed her fears and limiting beliefs and were able to move forward with goals in her personal action plan. She was able to dispel her self-defeating thoughts and replace them with a healthy self-view. She took a couple of college courses to pursue a different branch of her field. She quit her job with pride and enthusiasm. She found an amazing job she loved, filled with the components she was missing in her previous job. This new adventure offered true job security…including emotional safety. Kudos to this woman, who found her inner strength and wisdom, and broke free from the shackles of a miserable job.