YANSS 296 – Why you are in an unhappy relationship with your job, how to work it out if you can, and what you should do to avoid a messy breakup if you can’t
Are you unhappy at your job? Are you starting to consider a change of career because of how your current work makes you feel? Do you know why? According to our guest in this episode, Dr. Tessa West, a psychologist at NYU, if you are currently contemplating whether you want to do the work that you do everyday you should know that although this feeling is common, psychologists who study this sort of thing have discovered that our narratives for why we feel this way are often just rationalizations and justifications.
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In fact, it turns out that the way we psychologically evaluate the jobs we think we might not want to do anymore is nearly identical to how we evaluate romantic relationships we feel like we might no longer want to be a part of. The feelings are usually undeniable, but our explanations for why we feel the way we feel can be wildly inaccurate, and because of that, our resulting behavior can be, let’s say, sub-optimal. We sometimes stay far longer than we should or make knee-jerk decisions we later regret or commit to terrible mistakes that could have been avoided.
OFFICIAL DESCRIPTION OF THE BOOK
When we’re unhappy in our jobs, we often attribute our frustration to a bad manager, boring tasks, and stressful workloads. But our dissatisfaction at work usually stems from a deeper psychological need that’s not being met at work, like not getting the recognition you deserve.
In Job Therapy, Dr. Tessa West helps you figure out the real reason you’re unhappy and shows you how to find a new position in which you’ll thrive, whether in a different role, company, or new industry altogether.
Through her research interviewing thousands of people who have recently switched jobs or undergone career changes, she found there are five common sources of career frustration:
having an identity crisis – does your sense of self no longer match your job?you’ve drifted-apart – do you no longer recognize the job you once loved?you’re torn between places – are you taking on too many roles at work, switching tasks too often, or stuck between two paths?you’re the runner up – do you always feel like you keep coming in second?you’re the underappreciated star – are you crushing it at work, but the people around you aren’t recognizing your performance?
Tessa WestTessa West is a Professor of Psychology at New York University and a leading expert in the science of interpersonal communication. Her work focuses on questions such as, why is it so hard to give honest, critical feedback? and how do class, race, and cultural differences make communication in the workplace so difficult, and what can we do to improve it?
Tessa received her PhD from the University of Connecticut and has published her work in psychology’s most prestigious journals, including Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Psychological Science, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, and Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. She has received multiple grants from the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. Tessa has also received several career awards, including the early career award from the Foundation for Personality and Social Psychology, and the Theoretical Innovation Prize from the Foundation for Personality and Social Psychology.
Tessa’s work has been covered by Scientific American, the New York Times, ABC World News, TIME, Harper’s Bazaar, the Financial Times, Forbes, CNBC, CNN, The Guardian, The Globe and Mail, Bloomberg, Strategy and Business, and the US Supreme Court. She has appeared on the Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore, CNN, and Good Morning America, and is a regular contributor to the Wall Street Journal. She is the author of the book “Jerks at Work: Toxic coworkers and what to do about them,” and “Job Therapy: Finding work that works for you.”
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