Avoid the trap of comfort
When looking for a job, we are seeking to satisfy a set of needs. Lets look at a basic and broad ladder of employee needs.
- Security: includes a pay that covers your needs, job security and ability to do the required job.
- Environment: includes culture, team structure and manager-subordinate relationships.
- Challenge: includes aligning the goal of the employee to the company’s goals and enabling a mutual growth.
I call it a ‘ladder’ of needs because usually we seek fulfillment of needs in this order. Step 1 is very basic and might be the first thing you look at to accept or reject a job. Once this step is achieved you consider the dynamics and environment of the work place. You try to match your values with the organization’s vision and develop comfort with the people there. These steps can be assessed fairly quickly and once attained help you develop a comfort. You gain expertise in your skills, develop a streamlined process of working and good relationships while being paid a favorable amount. Such a job is good BUT its not great.
Most jobs stop at being good and fail to continuously challenge employees. This is what step 3 is all about. Its about going beyond the skill set that was required when you first joined the job. A great job exposes you to new things and helps you achieve your personal goals. However, only progressive organizations can take you to step 3. An organization with a weak ambition to go ahead will be completely okay with the skills you already have. The company will be okay with its current clients, with its current stream of constant income and will eventually drag you in to developing a self-destructive comfort zone.
The step of challenge can only be assessed after spending a while in the job. The danger is that the comfort developed through steps 1 and 2 might satisfy you for the short-term but their affect wears sooner than you expect and suddenly you can’t understand why you are unhappy with this ‘good’ job. You are doing the thing you are very good at, at a consistent pay. Repetition and monotony kick in, slowly wrapping around your routine, turning it from interesting work to boring habit. As evolving beings, the happiness and motivation from an achievement finishes after a while and then we want a new objective. Newer challenges keep refreshing our goals, improving and advancing, so that stagnancy or complacency doesn’t infect us.
If you reach this state, let me tell you, the fault is your own. You failed to recognize when the comfort zone became a trap, giving way to demotivation, lethargy and rusting of your mind. However, the silver lining is that you can jump out of this comfort trap. Either urge your manager to improve the vision of your job or change your job.
I changed perfectly ‘good’ jobs that had seemingly nothing wrong with them but they failed to engage me and keep me challenged. Frankly, they became boring and static. I wanted to be where the magic happens.
Message for A players: a comfort trap is like a friend zone, jump out before its too late.
Message for employers of A players: enable them to achieve step 3 or hire a comfortable B player.
