[00:00:00]
So I've been thinking about how strange it is that we call staying the safe option. Sometimes staying only feels safer because you already know exactly what you're dealing with. You know the paycheck, the benefits, the schedule, the boss, and that very specific sense of dread that starts creeping in on Sunday afternoon.
None of it is good exactly. It's just familiar. Leaving doesn't give you that. Leaving gives you a whole shit ton of questions that your brain cannot answer yet. Will I find something better? Can I afford the gap? What happens to my health insurance? What if I regret it? What if I go through all of this shit and land somewhere worse?
So naturally, your brain takes a job that's already costing you and compares it with every possible thing that could go wrong if you leave. So somehow staying wins, and that's what I wanna talk through today. Now I'm gonna leave the should you quick question alone for a minute. I wanna look at why staying can feel so reasonable long after the job has stopped working, what your brain is trying to protect, and how to [00:01:00] tell whether you're choosing to stay or just defaulting to what you already know.
So let's jump on in. There's a term from behavioral economics called status quo bias. I promise I'm not gonna turn this into an economics lecture because I don't even know anything about economics. But I did wanna talk about this because it basically means that we tend to prefer the current situation because it's the current situation.
Once something becomes the default, changing it feels like a much bigger deal than continuing it
And work is really a perfect example of this. Staying happens automatically. You wake up, you log in, you answer those messages, sit through the meetings, collect the paycheck, and then do it all over again. You don't have to formally choose the job every Monday morning. Leaving makes you do things. You have to figure out what you want.
You have to update the resume, look at the money, explain the change to other people and to yourself. You have to apply, [00:02:00] interview, and then obviously you have to risk hearing no. Then if somebody says yes, you still have to decide whether you trust the new thing more than the old thing. That is a lot of work for a brain that may already be exhausted from the job it's trying to evaluate.
So doing nothing starts to feel neutral, but it is not. Doing nothing keeps producing the same Monday. This is the question I'd use to interrupt that default. Knowing everything that you know now, would you actively choose this job today? Not whether you can keep doing it, because high performers can keep doing all kinds of shit that is costing them too much.
Would you choose it again with the manager that you have, the workload that you have, the culture you're in, and the actual life that the job leaves you with? That answer doesn't automatically mean you should quit. It tells you whether staying is a present day choice or something that you've stopped questioning.
And once you start questioning it, your [00:03:00] brain starts to bring out the losses. This is where loss aversion comes in. Your brain cares a lot about losing something that you already have, usually more than it cares about the possibility of gaining something better
The current job has real tangible things attached to it. A paycheck hits your bank account. The insurance covers that doctor's appointment. You know how much PTO you have. Maybe you work from home three days a week, you get to leave by 4:00, or you have a manager who mostly leaves you alone. Those things are good.
The possible gains from leaving are still imaginary. Better work? Maybe. A culture that doesn't drain you? Possibly. More energy at the end of the day? Potentially. But none of that is guaranteed yet. So your brain puts a real paycheck against a possible better life and calls the paycheck safer, which is honestly fair.
The paycheck is paying for the mortgage, rent, daycare, groceries, medication, and everything that you [00:04:00] need for the life that you've already built. I am never gonna tell you to ignore that and follow your passion into a financial crisis. That is garbage advice. But I do want you to get specific about what the job is protecting.
Security is too broad. What are we actually talking about? Is it six months of expenses? Is it health insurance for your family? Is it a flexible schedule that you need because you've got young kiddos? Maybe there's a pension date to consider, or the fact that your current workload is manageable enough to let you build something else on the side.
Name the thing, because once you can name it, you can research it, put a number on it, and protect it another way, or admit that it matters enough to shape the next decision. A vague fear can shut down the whole conversation. A specific risk gives you something to work with. And sometimes the specific thing keeping you there is one of the only good parts of the job, which makes things complicated
Because sure, maybe the work drains [00:05:00] you, but the schedule is flexible. The culture could be terrible, but the benefits are excellent. You're checked out, but the salary finally gives your family some breathing room. You're allowed to count that. The goal isn't to talk yourself out of every reason to stay.
The goal is to stop letting one benefit erase every other cost, which is where we get to sunk cost. You've already put years into this career. Maybe you went to school for it. You earned the credentials and built the reputation, climbed into that title, and became the person everybody calls when something goes sideways.
Walking away can feel like admitting all of that was wasted. I understand that one personally. I spent fifteen years in higher education, student affairs, leadership programs, student crisis work, even campus politics, committees that should have been emails, all of it. When I left, those fifteen years didn't just disappear into the void.
I brought those skills with [00:06:00] me. I still knew how to take something messy, find the pattern, make it usable, and help somebody see a next move. The container changed, but the work underneath it still came with me. That's what sunk cost makes hard to see. Your brain wants the past investment to justify the next investment.
You gave it ten years, so another year feels easier to defend than changing the direction. But another year can't make the first ten mean any more than what they already do. Those years already gave you information. They show you what you're good at, what drains you, what you can tolerate, what you never wanna repeat again, and what kind of work keeps pulling you back in.
You don't have to keep paying for the lesson after you've learned it
So try taking the past out of the vote for just one second and look at the next three years. If you knew nothing would meaningfully change, would you choose three more years of this job? That question tends to land differently. Five or ten years [00:07:00] feels a little too abstract. Three years is close enough to actually picture.
Like, you can see the same calendar, the same Sunday scaries, the same conversations with your manager, and that same version of you trying to convince yourself that the next quarter might be better. Pay attention to what your body does when you picture that. Another thing to think about is that money isn't the only thing you can lose.
A job can hold your competence, your status, routine. It may even be where your friends know you from or how your family explains what you do. Maybe you worked really hard to become the director, attorney, professor, executive designer, or person with the impressive company on the LinkedIn headline. Then the job stops fitting, and leaving feels like pulling a brick out of the middle of your identity.
Who are you without the title? What do you say when somebody asks what you do? Are you still ambitious if you choose something smaller? Did you fail if the career you wanted at twenty-five doesn't fit at [00:08:00] forty? That's fucking heavy. Of course, your brain would rather revisit the pros and cons list for the forty-seventh time than answer all of that shit.
But the title isn't the only proof of who you are. Think about what you're actually afraid of losing. Maybe it's leadership, creativity, expertise, being useful or respected, or feeling like your work matters. Those things can move. Your job doesn't own the way you solve problems. It doesn't own your judgment, the relationships, skills, or the part of you that knows how to walk into a mess and make sense of it.
A career change may require you to translate those things, and translation can be uncomfortable, but it still isn't the same as starting from nothing. This is where I would ask, what part of me do I think I lose if I leave? And where else could that part of me live? Maybe leadership lives in a smaller organization.
Creativity shows up in the work that isn't your main paycheck yet. [00:09:00] Expertise follows you into consulting, teaching, or an adjacent role. Being useful starts happening somewhere that doesn't require you to be available every freaking second of the day. You're trying to find a better container for what already exists.
And yes, that still means stepping into uncertainty. Your brain would love to see the whole path before taking one step. But as we all know, careers do not work that way, nor does life, really. And there's one more piece here that matters a lot when you're burned out. Stress and exhaustion affect how you make decisions.
When your capacity is low, your brain leans harder on habits, defaults, and whatever gets you through the immediate problem, which really makes sense. You're trying to survive the workday. You don't have a spare three hours after dinner to reinvent your career, research seven different industries, and become emotionally available for networking.
Sometimes deciding what to eat feels like enough of a group project. So you keep [00:10:00] choosing the known job. At least you understand its rules, right? You know which meeting requires emotional preparation. You know how to word the Slack message so your manager doesn't turn it into a whole thing. And you know exactly how much of yourself to shut down before Monday.
That familiarity can look like clarity when you're depleted. This is why I don't love forcing a giant career decision when your brain is running on fumes. You may need enough capacity to investigate before you can decide cleanly. That doesn't mean waiting until you feel amazing because we could be here forever.
It means making the next move small enough that your current brain can actually do it. One conversation, figuring out one number, running one experiment, even just looking at one job posting that you read as information instead of an application you have to complete tonight. The goal is to replace some of the scary blank space with actual data.
Now, here's what I want you to do with all of this. Take a piece of paper and draw a line [00:11:00] down the middle. On the left, write what leaving could cost me. On the right, you're gonna put what staying is already costing you. The words matter.
Leaving could cost you something. Staying is already producing a cost. On the leaving side, you're gonna put the paycheck gap, insurance, flexibility, title, routine, relationships, and anything else that you're genuinely afraid of losing. Be specific here. If the concern is money, write exactly how much. write down who needs coverage and what you need to research.
If it's flexibility, name the exact part of your week that has to remain protected. Then give the staying side the same level of honesty and specificity. What's happening to your energy? What about your health? What about your confidence, your relationships? What have you stopped doing because work gets everything first?
What opportunity are you delaying while you wait for this job to magically [00:12:00] become different?
A lot of us compare the obvious cost of leaving with a blurry version of the cost of staying.
So of course, staying wins that comparison every freaking time. One side has numbers, benefits, and deadlines. The other side says, "I'm tired." Tired is real, but it's hard to use in a decision. What does your tired look like on a Tuesday? What has it changed for you? And what does another year of it take away from you?
Now the decision has better information. You still may choose to stay. Maybe the money has to come first right now. Maybe the flexibility genuinely protects your family. Maybe the job has enough room to change if you address the workload, relationship, or role design.
Cool. Then staying gets a job. What exactly are you staying for? What needs to change? What are you testing while you're staying, and how long are you willing to run that test before you look at the results? Staying can be strategic when it buys you time, protects something [00:13:00] important, or gives you room to build the next move.
Staying forever because leaving feels scary is a different decision. Look back at the leaving side of the page and find the item doing the most work. If it's money, calculate the minimum amount your life costs every month. Then look at your savings, your possible income, timeline, and the gap you'd need to close.
You may learn that leaving tomorrow doesn't work. Fine. But now you have a number instead of a cloud hanging over the whole decision
If it's health insurance, research the real options and prices. Please do not let an imaginary $4,000 monthly premium make the decision before you've checked what coverage would actually cost.
If it's identity, write down the skills, strengths, and types of problems that have followed you across jobs. Your title history may change. Your skill history probably has a through line. If you're afraid the next job will be worse, stop trying to solve that fear by reading another 100 job descriptions.
Talk to someone doing the work. [00:14:00] Ask what the day actually looks like, what the posting leaves out, what surprised them about the job, and what they wish they'd known. Every action should answer a question. You don't have to eliminate every risk. Pick the one that keeps ending the conversation and reduce it enough to keep thinking.
That's where your agency starts to come back. You may finish this exercise and still decide to stay. Good, because now you know what you're staying for, what that job needs to protect, and which costs you're no longer willing to ignore. You may also realize that you've been done for a while, and the remaining work is building a responsible path out.
Also good. A decision can be clear before the logistics are complete. You don't need to blow up your life by Friday. You do need to stop letting familiarity make this choice without you. So name what leaving threatens. Count what staying already costs. Then reduce one risk enough to take the next step.
Staying can be a real strategy. Knowing how to survive the [00:15:00] job isn't enough to make it safe. That's all I got for you for this episode, and as always, thanks for spending some time with me. Take care, and make good choices, friend.
