Many people’s careers and lives are often held back by one small thing.
You might also be holding yourself back in your career, but if you can fix this one small thing, your career and life will change for the better. If you are not able to make this minor yet substantial adjustment, then everything will just continue in the same way as before, and you may never achieve all that you are capable of achieving.
I have always believed that it is best to focus mainly on our strengths, not our weaknesses. When you work on your strengths, you are much more likely to improve. Certain people are good at certain things and bad at others. You will improve more in something you are good at than in something that is a weakness. Many of us have giant weaknesses, and just making a small gain in our weaknesses, or a shift in our perceptions, can make a major difference in the quality of our lives and careers.
One of the biggest weaknesses that people have is job-hopping, which comes about due to a weakness they have neglected to address. Some reasons people give for hopping from one job to another are:
- They do not think that their employer fits them.
- They are bored.
- They do not feel they are receiving enough feedback.
- There are not enough advancement opportunities.
- There is too much criticism in the workplace.
- They find their employer unethical.
- They do not get along with coworkers.
- They dislike their boss.
- They do not think that they are paid enough money.
- They feel unrecognized for their contribution.
- They feel devalued.
- They do not believe their employer is prestigious enough.
- They do not trust the company.
- They do not feel challenged.
Most job hoppers go between jobs for the same primary reason over and over again. When this reason keeps repeating itself, I believe that this is often a signal that something is wrong with the person’s perceptions and attitudes, not necessarily with their employers.
What would happen to people who addressed this one reason for wanting to leave–while still at their existing job? What would happen if the people who are constantly leaving one job after another decide to fix themselves, instead of constantly blaming the employer?
I have heard various statistics about employment rates lately, one of which states that as many as 55% of employed people are always looking for a new job. This is a very high statistic. This tells me that a large proportion of people out there are already “out the door” of their current employer on a psychological level. Holding on to and advancing in a job are often greater challenges than looking for and taking on a new job. Therefore, many people prefer to simply take a new job, rather than to try making their current job work. I think this is a mistake.
Generally, the best opportunities are those that are before you right now. Your best prospect for advancement is more often than not at your current job, not at another job. Your current relationships are often your very best asset. Your current experience with an employer is often more valuable than taking a risk with a new employer. You should always try to make the most of your existing relationships and jobs before starting over with someone or someplace new. If you stop and think about it, it is likely that you already know what would be required of you to advance in your current job, whereas you could spend years learning the requirements of some new employer.
I cannot tell you how many people I have encountered who constantly hop between jobs for seemingly no reason at all. There are, of course, good reasons to change jobs. However, this is a very important decision to make, and it is not something a person should do often. For better or for worse, taking a new job means entering into an unknown set of circumstances; it means taking huge chances with your future. You should never take a new job if you do not have to, and you should never switch jobs unless you fully understand whether or not the problem with your current job is something that you can fix.
There are people who are always complaining about their job–whatever it may be–and jumping from one place of employment to another. Such persons will generally be happy with a new job for a short while, but after some time, for one reason or another, they will decide that the job is not everything it seemed to be in the beginning. At that point, the persons will become highly critical of the job and will begin fantasizing about and eventually looking for a new job. Such types of people tend to be always looking outside of themselves, blaming others for their condition. This is extremely common; you probably have known people who are like this.
Recently, I had dinner with a man who has spent his career teaching people about various financial systems that could be used to increase their wealth, start businesses, and so forth. He is not a very well known guy; however, I knew who he was before meeting him because he has been a partner with some pretty famous people in his field in the past. Some of this man’s former partners are well-known financial coaches, the people that you often see on infomercials, if you turn on your television at an odd hour.
Despite all of these partnerships that the man had, though, none of them had ever really worked out. In fact, most of them only seemed to last for a year or two at most. The man was a little bitter and upset about this, and he spent most of our dinner explaining this to me. I was eager to learn why each of these partnerships had failed, because it did not make a lot of sense to me why someone would have had so many different business partners.
“My problem with the people I have worked with is that they are only primarily concerned with taking as much money out of the businesses as quickly as they can, without putting anything back. I always want to build the business up and they always want to milk it as fast as possible,” he said.
To me, this conversation demonstrated in effect, that this man could never come to terms with the people he was working with on one simple issue–whatever the issue may have been. This one issue was something that kept coming up over and over, and had ultimately influenced the course of his career.
I do not know whether or not this guy was in the right or wrong in the failure of all of these business relationships. However, regardless of how one might look at it, there was most definitely one thing, and one thing only, that kept coming up and that was making it difficult for him to accomplish everything he wanted to in his business relationships.
As I sat there thinking about this man’s situation, I could not help feeling that this is the same thing that happens to numerous people in their careers–one simple thing keeps coming up over and over again that makes them jump to the next job, and then the next job after that, and then the next job after that.
In this man’s case, I eventually figured out what the commonality was between each of his failed business partnerships: His major weakness was that he could not see eye to eye with his partners regarding the personal investment he believed they should have made in his business. It was this one small thing that, had he corrected his perspective on it, might have made a giant difference in the quality, longevity, and success of his business relationships–and his career.
Is there one thing that is holding you back in your own career? If something is holding you back, driving you to look for a job when you should not, and creating other issues for you–then fix it. Fix this one thing and your career and life will change for the better. When you are having difficulties in the workplace, it is almost always about you, not others.
THE LESSON
Many people have a single weakness that they have failed to address, which holds them back in their careers and leads to job hopping. Job hopping indicates that something is wrong with a person’s attitudes and outlook rather than with their employers. Identify and fix the things that are holding you back rather than leaving your position when you should not, and much more success and happiness will come to you.
About Harrison Barnes
Harrison Barnes is the Founder of BCG Attorney Search and a successful legal recruiter himself. Harrison is extremely committed to and passionate about the profession of legal placement. His firm BCG Attorney Search has placed thousands of attorneys. BCG Attorney Search works with attorneys to dramatically improve their careers by leaving no stone unturned in a search and bringing out the very best in them. Harrison has placed the leaders of the nation’s top law firms, and countless associates who have gone on to lead the nation’s top law firms. There are very few firms Harrison has not made placements with. Harrison’s writings about attorney careers and placements attract millions of reads each year. He coaches and consults with law firms about how to dramatically improve their recruiting and retention efforts. His company LawCrossing has been ranked on the Inc. 500 twice. For more information, please visit Harrison Barnes’ bio.
About BCG Attorney Search
BCG Attorney Search matches attorneys and law firms with unparalleled expertise and drive that gets results. Known globally for its success in locating and placing attorneys in law firms of all sizes, BCG Attorney Search has placed thousands of attorneys in law firms in thousands of different law firms around the country. Unlike other legal placement firms, BCG Attorney Search brings massive resources of over 150 employees to its placement efforts locating positions and opportunities that its competitors simply cannot. Every legal recruiter at BCG Attorney Search is a former successful attorney who attended a top law school, worked in top law firms and brought massive drive and commitment to their work. BCG Attorney Search legal recruiters take your legal career seriously and understand attorneys. For more information, please visit www.BCGSearch.com.