Career Default Mode: What Are Your Barriers to Decision-making?

Career complacency is insidious. It begins slowly and, before you know it, career “dry rot” can take hold. My friend Jason Alba, CEO of JibberJobber, pointed out in “I Hated My Lawnmower” how taking the default position can lead to YEARS of needless frustration. I laughed about his predicament with the grass-clippings-spewing lawnmower. He wondered how many people have taken the default mode of not acting and accepting frustration in their career lives, just like he accepted the frustration of his malfunctioning lawnmower. Jason says, “…if we just accept the default we are given, we may never know what career bliss could be.” I agree with that wholeheartedly!

Then I pondered why the career default mode takes hold so easily for so many. Is it just plain inertia? Are we too inundated with daily concerns – even if it is the boss we abhor – to have the left-over energy to go down the road of another job search? Or could it be that simply making a decision to do something – anything – seems too overwhelming?

If decision-making is the obstacle, Kevin Eikenberry’s Remarkable Learning Blog posting “Decide! Five Barriers to Decisiveness and How to Overcome Them” could just be the brief decision-making diagnostic to pinpoint the problem. Read Kevin’s post – I am sure you have experienced all 5 barriers at some point in your life, and perhaps many of them simultaneously! Could one of these barriers on the road to career success be what is holding you back now?

As Kevin says, “The best way to become more decisive is to make decisions. And now is the time to begin.”