Are you objective about your career?

I was taught, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade!”

That’s usually great advice. Tough things are going to happen. Often they’re out of our control.

We can choose to wallow in self pity or we can make the best of our situation and move forward.

But according to Julia Galef in her book, Scout Mindset, there’s a related reasoning fallacy we need to be careful about.

She calls it “sweet lemons”.

What are “sweet lemons”?

When situations are painful or difficult, sometimes we convince ourselves, falsely, to put a positive spin on them. For example, Julia Galef points out that, in the past, the pain of bearing children was seen as promoting “spiritual growth” and “strength of character”.

There are a couple problems with viewing troubling situations as sweet lemons.

We can avoid taking action because we’d be messing with a “good thing.” Or, we might view situations as out of our control when there are things we could do to change them. We fail to see that our choices and actions got us where we are and could get us out of a difficult situation.

I hear “sweet lemons” reasoning quite often when I’m talking to professionals about their careers.

“I’d prefer not to work every night and all weekend, but I guess that’s just the way it is.”

“My boss is incompetent and treats me with disrespect. I need to learn to suck it up and not let that get to me.”

“Work is called work for a reason. It’s going to suck. I should focus on getting paid as much as possible for it.”

This kind of reasoning excuses us from making choices and taking actions to change our situations. In a way, we’re protecting ourselves from the effort we’ll need to expend to change, and the potential failures we may have along the way.

But by protecting ourselves, we’re staying stuck in situations that we don’t like.

There’s a better way.

Three steps to move past sweet lemons reasoning and closer to your career aspirations.

1. Be objective about your current situation.

Get clear on what’s really true and what’s distorted by your emotions.

This sounds a lot easier than it is. When I’m going through something difficult, I’m often fighting through a muddle of feelings and biased reasoning.

I find it helpful to journal about my situation. I write everything down - facts, thoughts, and feelings. Then I review what I wrote and ask myself which parts are objective facts and which are stories I’ve created that are biased by my emotions and perspective.

Sometimes it’s helpful to talk to a friend who can help through this process. It’s important to choose the kind of friend who will be objective and challenge you and not the kind that tells you what you want to hear.

2. Identify what’s really in your control versus out of your control.

I like to use an exercise based on Stephen Covey’s Circles of Concern and Influence framework.

Draw two concentric circles on a blank sheet of paper.

Write every factor that you control in the inner circle. Write the factors you can’t control outside of both circles. Write the factors you can influence in the outer circle.

Now, go back and look at each factor. Question your objectivity. Can you really control everything in the inner circle? Is everything outside of the circles really out of your control or influence?

Continue to reframe the factors and move them until you feel you have an accurate, objective view of what’s really in your control, what’s out of your control, and what you can influence.

Again, it’s helpful to have a trusted friend serve as a sounding board to ensure you’re truly objective.

3. Make choices and take action on the factors you can control or influence.

By this stage you should be beyond sweet lemons reasoning. You should have an objective view of your situation and what you can really do to change it.

Now it’s a matter of choice and action.

You will choose to change your situation or not.

If you choose to change your situation, then it’s time to move into action on the things you can influence.

Remember, not taking action is making a decision to accept things the way they are.

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