Career Games We Play
1 September 2017
“Life is a game, play it.” Mother Teresa
I love to play games and my house is littered with packs of cards and board games. Games are a great way to download from reality, relieve stress, learn, tap into creativity and connect with others. Many people also play imaginative games as a process to support decision making, testing decisions out fictionally before committing to them.
The Career Reboot Game is a career decision making game people sometimes play that isn’t always useful. It has rules that go something like this:
Feel cranky, unsettled, unhappy, de-motivated...
Blame it on your job/career/workplace
Start fantasizing about chucking it all in and starting fresh
Continue thinking about lots of different options
Do nothing
Get more cranky, unsettled, unhappy, de-motivated…
Many mid-career people spend hours playing this game, and add to it the What If Game. “What if I pack up and move to Queensland?” “What if I open a little coffee shop?” “What if I chuck it in and go back to Uni?” “What if I just stack shelves at Woolies?” “What if I take my Super early?”
This type of dreaming isn’t necessarily unhealthy. Psychologists call it prospecting, and it is a uniquely human capacity. We test out possible futures – will this future be better than this future, or does it just seem that way… Making any change in your career involves doing this prospecting and playing the Career Reboot Game, but the above rules are not the best to use.
If you are playing the Career Reboot Game try making the following adjustments to how you play:
Only play for a short period of time, as endless playing increases the likelihood you won’t take any action. Put an end date on your imagining. When this date comes make a decision.
Limit the options you consider to a maximum of 2 at a time. Your brain isn’t designed to be able to manipulate too many variables.
Recognise that career might not be the main reason you feel cranky, unsettled, unhappy and de-motivated. Sometimes career is just the easy scapegoat.
When I work with people endlessly playing the Career Reboot Game I will often introduce them to the PERMA model. This model represents 5 elements of well-being psychologists have identified as most important for flourishing.
P = Positive Emotions: Doing and having things in your life that make you feel good.
E = Engagement: Having something in your life you can get lost in doing.
R = Relationships: Having people you care about and who care about you.
M = Meaning: Having something that matters to you beyond you.
A = Achievement: Making progress on things important to you.
Many people who play the Career Reboot Game are playing it in order to fix something else that is out of kilter. PERMA can give them hints as to what that might be. By all means play the Career Reboot Game(with the above adjustments), but make sure you have the basics of PERMA covered first. Don’t play the game in order to fix something, play in order to enhance career. It will make the game more fun to play.
Finally, the Benevolent Benefactor Game is another to play. Often the big thing that stops people rebooting, or making any change in their career, even when they have all their PERMA ducks in a row, is financial security. Play the Benevolent Benefactor Game by imagining a benevolent benefactor has guaranteed you your current wage for as long as you keep working. The deal is that you don’t have to continue with your current work, you just have to work. What work would you do? Financial security stops too many people making proactive career change. If this is you, get on top of it, get your bad debt sorted, get savings behind you, and get the freedom to choose a future in which you flourish both in and out of your career.
As always wishing you a flourishing career
Katherine