Talking with a friend and ex colleague yesterday, it was interesting to see how the lure of a pay rise and new job prospects within a company already employed at, can keep us trucking on longer when we are more than ready to move on and often, actually hating our jobs.
We are mostly optimistic in our viewpoints. It's a common held on to belief that optimism is hard-wired into us in order to have a more rosy viewpoint on life. Just as we deceive ourselves that getting older is ok, we weight our opinions in a more favourable 60-40 or 70-30 split in favour of something that a rational mind would likely give opposing figures for. It's called Optimsm Bias and it helps us to get through life, but it also keeps us in situations that are detrimental to our wellbeing.
Having a masked sense of happiness in the face of an obvious (to me) situation where the warped truth is affecting someone to such an extent both physically and mentally - but not properly registering with that person who's in that situation - is a clear indication of how strong our optimism can be in the face of reason. Seeing and hearing my friend talk about his dilemma, which was a clear 100% 'get out of that job' decision from my standpoint, was a revelation for me. Seeing how I was in his position just a short time ago (even at the same company), explains to me how I also managed to cope with staying in a bad situation for the last five years.
As I listened to my friend questioning the stress he was feeling - putting it down to the likely result of his personal and not his professional life - I realised just how powerfully this warped optimism bias plays it's role in keeping us held in sometimes terrible situations. Bad job, bad relationships, bad living conditions etc. We all have the power to change things, yet still we don't make the steps.
So, my friend was questioning if he should stay at his job and potentially get a pay rise. The answer to this question was blazingly clear to me, but he continued to go back to the flimsy hope that the dream role and pay rise would come soon, which realistically had a next to nothing chance of happening and certainly not to the level he envisaged.
As I looked at his pale face, with dark rings under his eyes, hunched over, supping his beer, I was instantly transported back to my stint served recently at the same employer and how I also convinced myself to stay on, falsely believing things were going to improve. They never did, of course - in fact they got steadily worse - but I clung on to the hope/belief that the changes were coming and therefore blindly fixated on the potential for change that shoulda, coulda happened... which ultimately never came.
It's certainly an eye opener and something key for realising in ourselves, that we need to listen to our sound reasoning more. Through having quiet moments in meditation/yoga, we can better monitor this reality optimism bias scale to ensure the bias is levied in our favour more often and the real carrot of hope is not dangling on the end of a pipe-dream string.
As I listened to my friend questioning the stress he was feeling - putting it down to the likely result of his personal and not his professional life - I realised just how powerfully this warped optimism bias plays it's role in keeping us held in sometimes terrible situations. Bad job, bad relationships, bad living conditions etc. We all have the power to change things, yet still we don't make the steps.
So, my friend was questioning if he should stay at his job and potentially get a pay rise. The answer to this question was blazingly clear to me, but he continued to go back to the flimsy hope that the dream role and pay rise would come soon, which realistically had a next to nothing chance of happening and certainly not to the level he envisaged.
As I looked at his pale face, with dark rings under his eyes, hunched over, supping his beer, I was instantly transported back to my stint served recently at the same employer and how I also convinced myself to stay on, falsely believing things were going to improve. They never did, of course - in fact they got steadily worse - but I clung on to the hope/belief that the changes were coming and therefore blindly fixated on the potential for change that shoulda, coulda happened... which ultimately never came.
It's certainly an eye opener and something key for realising in ourselves, that we need to listen to our sound reasoning more. Through having quiet moments in meditation/yoga, we can better monitor this reality optimism bias scale to ensure the bias is levied in our favour more often and the real carrot of hope is not dangling on the end of a pipe-dream string.
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