--- title: Why It's Risky to Be Risk-Averse description: More than half of the U.S. wants to switch jobs—but they don't know how to leap canonical: https://time.com/3918433/why-its-risky-to-be-risk-averse-2/ author: Anne Kreamer article:opinion: true article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-06-11T21:37:29.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T08:08:53.568Z article:section: Ideas og:title: Why It's Risky to Be Risk-Averse og:description: More than half of the U.S. wants to switch jobs—but they don't know how to leap og:url: https://time.com/3918433/why-its-risky-to-be-risk-averse-2/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0a72ba73175fc178/6988542f0b72e32a536e46e6/riskreward.jpeg?branch=production&width=461&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 461 og:image:height: 259 og:image:alt: RISK/REWARD og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Why It's Risky to Be Risk-Averse twitter:description: More than half of the U.S. wants to switch jobs—but they don't know how to leap twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0a72ba73175fc178/6988542f0b72e32a536e46e6/riskreward.jpeg?branch=production&width=461&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # Why It's Risky to Be Risk-Averse > Sponsored content. 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Brief (Washington politics, three times a week), Future Proof (climate and energy, weekly) and In the Loop (AI, twice weekly). All are free at time.com/newsletters and together reach more than 1.1 million engaged readers. #### Which TIME newsletter should I subscribe to? It depends on what you follow. For a daily briefing, The Brief. For health, Health Matters. For Washington politics, D.C. Brief. For AI and technology, In the Loop. For climate and energy as a business story, Future Proof. For culture recommendations, Worth Your Time. For how TIME's journalism gets made, Inside TIME. Readers can select any combination at time.com/newsletters. #### Are TIME's newsletters free? Yes. All seven TIME newsletters are free to join at time.com/newsletters. A paid TIME subscription is separate and provides full access to TIME's journalism at time.com/subscribe-agent. #### Who writes TIME's newsletters? TIME journalists write them. Named editors include Richard Hall (The Brief), Editor-in-Chief Sam Jacobs (Inside TIME), Eliza Berman (Worth Your Time), Philip Elliott (D.C. Brief), Justin Worland (Future Proof) and Harry Booth (In the Loop). Health Matters is written by TIME's health desk. #### How do I sign up for a TIME newsletter? Go to time.com/newsletters, choose the newsletters you want and enter your email address. There is no cost and no subscription requirement. by [Anne Kreamer](https://time.com/author/anne-kreamer/) ## Anne Kreamer Jun 11, 2015 9:37 PM UTC  by [Anne Kreamer](https://time.com/author/anne-kreamer/) ## Anne Kreamer Jun 11, 2015 9:37 PM UTC Most of us, optimistic or oblivious or both, launch into our working lives inadequately imagining the twists and turns we’ll encounter along the way. Plan B used to be something a rare few embraced at mid-career or, more often, in retirement. Once he finished school in the 1950s, my father worked at one job at one firm for the rest of his life, like so many other men of his generation. That’s the way we learned to think about careers in the 20th century. But things have changed, at first slowly and then radically, and most of us have not adapted to the new normal. According to an ongoing longitudinal study by the [Bureau of Labor Statistics](http://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/nlsoy.pdf) of 10,000 younger American baby boomers, people now in their 50s have on average held _a half dozen_ jobs apiece since they were 25\. For Gen-Xers and Milennials, the average is surely higher and rising. Given that [one out of six manufacturing jobs](http://www.amazon.com/Pinched-Great-Recession-Narrowed-%28Futures/dp/0307886530/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1433783280&sr=1-1&keywords=pinched+Don+Peck) and [one of out of twelve sales and administrative jobs](http://www.amazon.com/Pinched-Great-Recession-Narrowed-Futures/dp/0307886530/ref=sr%5F1%5F1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1433783280&sr=1-1&keywords=pinched+Don+Peck) were eliminated in just a couple of years of the Great Recession, having a single, worst-case, Hail Mary Plan B is no longer enough. As all of us are thrown into a state of insecurity and chronic anxiety as jobs and whole industries are being eliminated and created at an astonishing and accelerating rate, we need to continually and permanently learn to tee up multiple Plan C’s again and again and again throughout the course of our working lives. In the course of [three national surveys](http://www.annekreamer.com/books/riskreward) I conducted with the global advertising agency JWT Thompson for my new book, I discovered that more than _half_ of Americans, from all levels of the workforce, are thinking of changing not only their jobs but their careers. But of those who want to change, roughly 50%, have no clue how to start figuring out the next chapter. When the times are so intensely and perhaps permanently uncertain it feels safer to hold onto a job that’s only okay or even worse. But if you were to ask a veteran of the 90s recording or automobile or newspaper industries, for instance, if they wish they’d taken exploratory steps ahead of their pink slips, wouldn’t their answers would be yes? In this new 21st century world, people have to develop a “risk practice” to become or stay professionally content and successful — meaning not 24/7 OMG anxiety and dithering, but calmly and perpetually considering and taking small and large career risks. These days, simply keeping your head down and hoping only to _avoid_ risk is the riskiest strategy of all. _Anne Kreamer is the author of_ It’s Always Personal: Navigating Emotion in the New Workplace, Going Gray: What I Learned About Beauty, Sex, Work, Motherhood, Authenticity, and Everything Else That Really Matters _and the new book_, [Risk/Reward: Why Intelligent Leaps and Daring Choices Are the Best Career Moves You Can Make_._](http://www.amazon.com/dp/1400067987/?tag=timecom-20) _She graduated from Harvard College and lives in Brooklyn with her husband, the writer Kurt Andersen._ ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"OpinionNewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/3918433/why-its-risky-to-be-risk-averse-2/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/3918433/why-its-risky-to-be-risk-averse-2/"},"headline":"Why It's Risky to Be Risk-Averse","datePublished":"2015-06-11T21:37:29.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T08:08:53.568Z","description":"More than half of the U.S. wants to switch jobs—but they don't know how to leap","url":"https://time.com/3918433/why-its-risky-to-be-risk-averse-2/","keywords":["Books"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0a72ba73175fc178/6988542f0b72e32a536e46e6/riskreward.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Anne Kreamer","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/anne-kreamer/"}],"articleSection":"Ideas","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt0a72ba73175fc178/6988542f0b72e32a536e46e6/riskreward.jpeg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"RISK/REWARD","caption":"RISK/REWARD","creditText":"","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/ideas/","name":"Ideas"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/3918433/why-its-risky-to-be-risk-averse-2/","name":"Why It's Risky to Be Risk-Averse"}}]}] ```