Don’t Believe the Hype

There are a lot of posts about companies or bad managers doing this or that to employees. The ones that I really get fired up about are the ones where people talk about managers keeping people in jobs as if we fit into some box. The reason that I feel so strongly is because it’s patently false…so don’t believe the hype.

It may feel good to blame someone else for something we don’t like, especially if we see that person as a bad manager. The herd mentality is that managers are responsible for creating team members’ careers, which is utter nonsense.

WE ARE 100% RESPONSIBLE FOR OURSELVES.

Period. Full stop.

Our careers, our happiness, and our level of satisfaction are in our control and are solely our responsibility.

We have so many levers we can pull to change our situation like working harder, getting smarter in our field, learning something new, or meeting different people to find a new place.

At a current job, we can ask for more, we can show that we are ready, we can take steps to move up in an organization, we can demonstrate that we’re ready for that next step. We can always say out loud that we want a change and then ask how to make that happen.

And…and we can also leave that same organization for different opportunities. It might not be easy, and I’m not pretending it is. It can be hard, and even scary as hell. I walked into a director’s office and asked for approval of my transfer to another division, over the strong objections of my senior manager. I was ready to leave the company if the transfer didn’t happen, and I shared that. In the end, my transfer was approved. If it hadn’t been, I was mentally and emotionally prepared to find a different company to work for. It would have been hard, and I was taking healthy control of my situation to create what I wanted.

No manager is ever keeping anyone “trapped” in anything. We are deciding to be in that situation, even if it’s what we see as the “least bad” option. We are STILL CHOOSING this option over all the other options we have available, even if they’re hard.

No one is forcing us to do anything, ever.

Please everyone…remember your power.

Remember your ability to choose your own path.

Remember that NO manager in the world is going to choose the best path for you…only you can do that.

Pretending you can outsource choices this important is simply irresponsible to the most important person in your world…YOU. And when you recognize your power, and practice your ability to choose, you become unstoppable!