The Best Thing I’ve Done for My Career Is To Stop Chasing Money
By: Rob Cyrier
Tags: Self Improvement, Work, Lifestyle, Life Lessons, Money

An increase in compensation only provides a temporary fix.

Eventually, changing jobs solely for reasons of financial gain started to lose its luster. Don’t get me wrong — it was a fun ride for a while. It was quite exciting and felt great to be in demand and sought after.

The late 1990s and early 2000s of the Dotcom Bubble resulted in an exhilarating time in the tech industry. You could pretty much name your price as a software developer.

Once the bubble burst, I started to feel like I needed something else to motivate me than just a great payday. I needed to work for a company that had leadership with an inspiring vision that I could get behind and buy into.

Making good money can only keep you satisfied with your job for so long. That alone will not have the staying power and fulfillment to remain loyal to a company.

Think about it — when you received your most recent 3–6% pay increase, how long did that euphoria of more money in your paycheck last? 1 month? 2 months? 3 months?

If working for money is your main motivation at your current company, you will always be anxiously awaiting that increase at your next performance review.

And the chase is on — you’ll never be satisfied.

In fact, per the article “Making More Money Won’t Help You Like Your Job Any More” published by The Cut, there is actually a yearly salary amount that has a diminishing return on overall happiness and job satisfaction:

It’s important to know that the amount of money in question makes a difference: In 2010, a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences analyzed information from half a million U.S. residents and concluded that once people begin making more than $75,000 a year, the relationship between more money and greater happiness begins to level off. Beyond that point, any bonus — whether it’s a dollar or a million dollars — does relatively little to significantly alter happiness in the long run. And plenty of studies have found that extra payment, more than simply having no effect, can end up actually reducing the intrinsic motivation we would otherwise feel for an activity that we find interesting and rewarding.

This is how most people start in their chosen profession—almost a jockeying for a position of sorts and establishing one’s overall worth. As you progress in your earning power to reach a financial comfort level, motivation naturally changes, as pointed out by the study.

As I look back, I eventually felt the need for a different purpose and motivation in my career.

The turning point was when I realized that compensation alone wouldn’t cut it anymore. I needed a company with an inspiring vision to drive me and respect my life outside of work.

When a company claims that my well-being and family comes first, they needed to prove that to me through their actions and demands on my time. Otherwise, it was just lip service.

Once my family started to grow, and our children got older, this became more important. I needed to put aside my 25-year-old self’s short-term fix of chasing money to focus on other things that mattered most — true fulfillment on the job and time with my family.