I landed the dream job.
Great company, good benefits and long-term earnings potential. I had moved my family for this. My youngest had just made his first real friend. My oldest had made the basketball team his first year of high school. I was becoming a basketball mom again. The other moms finally let me into the circle. I had traded a life we knew for a promise I was starting to doubt. That's not something I was willing to admit. Leaving wasn't an option.
So I stayed.
The Comfortable Cage
Year one, I noticed it. Small things at first. I stopped voicing opinions as freely as I used to. I started overthinking decisions I would have made without hesitation before. Every meeting had a version of me running in the background. Calibrating, reading the room, editing before I spoke.
It was exhausting. Not the work. The performance of being okay with the work.
I had a script for when the restlessness came up. Great company. Other people would kill for this opportunity. I moved my family here. I'm not a quitter. Be responsible.
Responsibility. That's what I called it.
The culture was doing something to me I didn't want to acknowledge. It was killing my curiosity. Shrinking my autonomy. Changing the way I thought. I felt like a bird in a cage. A comfortable cage with a nice view but nowhere to go.
The Meeting
Two years in, I had a 1:1 with one of my team members. I don't remember what the meeting was about. But I can't forget how they felt when we were done. Deflated. Head down. You know that look someone gives you that says "I thought you had my back."
I sat there after they closed the door. I ran the conversation back. Who was this person I was becoming? I didn't recognize her. I didn't move for a few minutes. Just sat there. Something had shifted and I knew it.
That's when I realized I had become the boss I would never want to work for.
Not because I was cruel. Because I had stopped advocating. Two years of calibrating had turned me into someone who took orders without challenging them. Who stopped going to bat for my team. I was passing down what was handed to me. Without question, without pushback, without the part of me that used to fight for the people I led.
I wasn’t a leader. I was someone managing their own survival. I didn't recognize her.
Status Quo Bias
There's a name for what kept me there. Psychologists call it status quo bias.
Your brain doesn't choose what's best for you. It chooses what's known. It chooses what's safe. The familiar registers as safe. Even when it's hard. Even when it's wrong. Your brain will choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven every time.
It's not a weakness. It's biology. But biology isn't destiny.
The script I was running: responsible, loyal, not a quitter. That wasn't logic. It was my brain doing exactly what it was wired to do. Keep me safe. Not happy. Not fulfilled. Just safe.
The question that finally cracked it wasn't about the job. It was about the person I was becoming. I started feeling icky. That's the only word for it. Something felt off and I couldn't shake it. I didn't like who I was becoming. I realized I had a choice. Stay and keep drifting from her. Or leave and go find her.
The door was never locked. I just kept telling myself it was.
The Fix — Name the Cage
The specific thing. The role, the relationship, the habit, the group. The thing you're staying in because it's familiar and calling it responsible.
Then answer this: Am I here because it's right? Or because it's safe?
Until next Tuesday.
Ceaneh
