That’s pretty much my answer. I’ve turned down two pretty big promotion offers within this company so far, and I’ve been here for 4 years now.
I guess it boils down to laziness, but I really felt like my quality of life would have been severely affected.
I like going home on Friday night and leaving work behind. I like being able to leave the office before 6 PM. I like a less stressful job environment, even if that means $10-20K a year less. It’s worth it to be able to enjoy the time I spend with my husband and children and not constantly worry about Monday morning or whatever. And I like the work I currently do anyway.
I’ve been thinking about these things a lot lately, and I do believe that once my son is out of high school (4 years from now), I may be able to give more of myself in a work environment. I’d like to earn as much as possible as quickly as possible, and I’d really love to try and retire early. So again, I guess it all goes back laziness. But I’m happy.
I would have to say it is ‘becoming the man I need and want to be’ to become successful. I hope that is clear.
I could have been monetarily successful already by taking to tortoise approach. Sticking to it. Nose to the grindstone. Kissing ass. Kicking ass. Climbing the corporate ladder. However I am sure that I would not be happy with the person I would have become. Even with hindsight, I have no regrets about not taking that path.
I had to learn some life lessons. Not that I didn’t know them before cerebrally, but knowing them in your head is very different than knowing them in your heart.
Getting over the fear of failure: I used to be sabotage myself with thoughts of, “But what if this goes wrong?” Having failed and sometimes spectatularly, I now know that it isn’t the end of the world. If I’m not failing, I’m probably not taking enough risks.
Stop overplanning: Use to plan the hell out of projects. To the point that they would not get off the ground. If I did manage to start something, the first setback would send me back to the drawing boards. Now I know how much more I can accomplish by just jumping in.
My current obstacles are timesinks like the SDMB. They say the time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time, but…
Fear of the unknown. Things are pretty good now, I could make big changes but what if I lose what I have? It could go either way. I have been in much worse situations and as bad as things were, at least there was a kind of freedom in being able to choose whatever I wanted to do next. I wasn’t afraid to switch jobs or whatever because it couldn’t be worse than what I had.
Now that I have what I consider an amount of success, things are comfortable. Sometimes I think I need to push myself more, that I am not living up to potential. Other times I think screw that, I am happy where I am and I am not going to make myself unhappy by imagining that something is always better just around the corner. Life is pretty good. It could be better. It could be a lot worse.
Right now we have a young child and I consider these slow-and-steady building up years. I think later on I will be ready to throw caution to the wind again. It’s kind of funny how that works, if you have nothing to lose you can be a big risk-taker, and also if you can afford to lose you can be a risk-taker. Right now I am in between those stages - I have something to lose and cannot afford to lose it.
So to add to the answer - fear of the unknown, and stage of life.
