Career and Memory Shortcuts

Memory is a funny thing. It tends to use shortcuts. One of these is called the “peak-end” rule. Take your job, for example. You have an overall idea of your job satisfaction, but you don’t remember every day of your job in detail. Instead, your brain remembers the extremes, the “peaks.” It remembers your very best moments at work, and your very worst moments. Also, your brain remembers your most recent work moments, the “ends.” Your brain averages these peak and end moments together and calculates your overall job satisfaction. But it’s important to remember this is, at best, only an estimate, an approximation. No one hates his job all of the time. No one loves her job all of the time. Rather, each work day is a series of ups and downs. Can you learn to live each day at work moment by moment, without relying so heavily on your memory’s “peak-end” shortcut?