More than once, you’ve found yourself mulling over the future of your career, only to push the desired change aside. It’s intimidating, after all. You can’t afford to lose your income right now. You’re afraid to lose all that you’ve gained in status and position. Besides, with your family or personal plans, now doesn’t seem like the right time to rock the boat. Maybe next year will bring new opportunities.
Once upon a time, this wasn’t an issue. From the moment you secured a solid profession or joined a reputable organization, your career advanced steadily, much like a conveyor belt at the airport. All you had to do was stay on it. You’d be invited to a room with a lecturer and some pastries, and they’d call it development. Another day, you’d be called in for feedback, a promotion, or a new role. Eventually, you’d become an expert or a manager, coasting smoothly until retirement. That was the past. In today’s world of obsolete knowledge, evolving technology, and rapid changes, this stability no longer exists. You can no longer afford to passively manage your career. It’s time to stop letting the fear of career changes control you.
This realization struck many during the COVID-19 pandemic, as we were confined to our homes, reflecting on life’s fragility and redefining our work expectations. The Great Reshuffle ignited ongoing negotiations over various aspects of the social contract of work. Amid this, many began dreaming anew about changes in how they wish to work and live. They dream, yet they fear pursuing those dreams.
4,000 Fearful Words Per Minute
This fear manifests in various forms. It includes the fear of stepping into the unknown beyond your familiar organization or profession, the fear of leaving a known environment and routines to start anew, the fear of transitioning from employee to self-employed, the fear of failure, and the need to earn a living. According to the Holmes-Rahe Life Stress Inventory, job changes rank among the top stress factors, just below the death of a close friend. It’s no wonder. Job changes involve the risk of failure, loss of income, and social status. These fears drain our desire to pursue our dreams and, in practice, paralyze us. They erode our confidence, sap our motivation to act, and help us bury the voices calling for change. Instead, they amplify the voices warning us against it.
Dr. Ethan Kross, a psychologist and professor at the University of Michigan and the Ross School of Business, calls this Chatter—a paralyzing inner dialogue occurring at a rate of about 4,000 words per minute, compared to an average pace of 150 words per minute in an out-loud conversation. In his book “Chatter: The Voice in Our Head, Why It Matters, and How to Harness It”, he explains that this is not only normal but essential for our lives. Our inner dialogue helps us function, allowing us to remember phone numbers, rehearse before a presentation, and process experiences to create the story of our reality. We spend between a third to a half of our waking hours engaged in this inner dialogue. Therefore, it’s crucial to manage this conversation so it doesn’t manage us.
It starts with awareness—awareness that the conversation in your head is not reality but the story you tell yourself about reality. To examine this story, take the conversation into the real world and find people who can expand your perspective. However, who you choose to talk to is crucial. Our inner dialogue is only amplified if we talk to people who provide purely emotional responses, empathizing with all the difficulties and fears our inner dialogue already identifies. Conversely, people who provide cognitive feedback, focusing not just on what we feel but also on how we can act, experiment, and explore possibilities, can be more beneficial. Your goal here is not just to find a shoulder to lean on but to examine your inner dialogue against reality.
A great way to do this is by embarking on a series of coffee meetings, talking to increasingly broader circles of people about your dilemmas, desires, and thoughts. Such conversations allow you to discover not only what you don’t know you don’t know but also where you don’t know you know. I learned this term from Dr. Tamara Tilleman, a surgeon exploring human potential and the serendipitous nature of discovery, who explains that we are trapped within perceptions and paradigms, often without realizing it. Conversations with people from different fields and areas of activity are excellent for understanding the limitations we impose on ourselves—limitations our inner voice paints as reality but aren’t really there.
Reality testing through conversations doesn’t require big steps, resigning, or even declaring that you’re job hunting. It’s simply a learning process to explore what interests you and where your skills and experience can be applied in different fields. During this process, let go of the need to fit yourself into familiar boxes with job titles or forms of occupation. You’re not looking for a job; you’re trying to understand what’s possible. The lack of focus is actually the goal because it allows you to calm the inner voices by examining both fears and dreams against reality.
Talk to Yourself Like a Good Friend
It turns out there are internal solutions to release the paralysis created by our inner dialogue. According to Kross, the brain has unique tools to help us manage it successfully. One of these tools is the ability to distance ourselves from the situation, to look at it as if we were a third party. This physical shift reduces activity in the brain regions involved in intrusive thoughts, leading to improved performance under pressure and fewer negative emotions.
Another ability of our brain is to conduct an imaginary dialogue. In this context, it’s recommended to look at our experience and imagine what we would say to friends facing a problem like the one troubling us, then apply that advice to ourselves. You can also put your anxieties into a broader context, comparing them to other situations you’ve been through or that others you know have faced, to gain perspective. Remind yourself that you’ve faced similar challenges before and succeeded. This way, we turn our inner voice into a personal coach, shifting our perspective and allowing for emotional distance from the problem. This view enables us to focus on possibilities, not just problems, to imagine success, believe in our abilities, and give us the confidence to take the first step even without having all the answers.
Next time you find yourself having a lively conversation in your head in the shower or before bed about a paralyzing fear, or replaying a situation that didn’t go well, like a conversation with a manager or employee, try to stop for a moment. Instead of talking with yourself, talk to yourself. Kross even recommends using your name in this conversation. Instead of saying, “What if I don’t succeed in this change?” say, “[Your Name], what will really happen if this move doesn’t work out? You can always look for a job similar to what you’re doing today; there’s no shortage of such positions.”
And this is yet another proven way for the brain to create distance—using imagination for time travel. Our brain allows us to look at the situation from a future perspective, broadening our viewpoint with the understanding that, in hindsight, many things that worry us now will likely seem much less troubling. For example, if you find yourself repeatedly replaying a difficult conversation or a failed presentation, ask yourself how it will look in a week, a month, or a year, and gain some perspective. In the context of a career change, try to imagine life a year from now, after the change, to understand the real risk you are taking. You might discover that, at worst, many workplaces would be happy to hire you back if the experiment doesn’t go well. And friends? They won’t think you failed; they will envy you for trying.
There are times during the year—birthdays, holidays, New Year’s, summer vacations—that serve as opportunities to assess where we are compared to where we want to be. If you notice a gap in your career and find that only the voices in your head are holding you back from exploring new possibilities, it’s time to have a different conversation with them. This way, you can achieve what currently seems impossible.
