JOB HOPPING AND THE TRUTH ABOUT STABILITY – TO GROW OR TO VEGETATE IN SILENCE
Imagine yourself standing before a mirror fogged by the vapor of repeated years. The image that should reflect evolution instead shows blurred contours of who you used to be. This is the silent paradox of prolonged professional stability: the sense of security that, like quicksand, slowly swallows the vitality that once drove your choices. It is not about demonizing permanence, but about questioning when it stops being a conscious choice and becomes existential anesthesia. Think of that colleague who has spent two decades in the same role, reciting the same processes like automatic mantras, while their eyes have lost the sparkle born from genuine challenge. What happens when the comfort zone solidifies into a cocoon so comfortable that they forget it was meant to be broken?

The Body That Stops Learning
Consider the neurological phenomenon of habituation. Our brains were shaped by evolution to save time. When an activity is repeated incessantly, neural circuits create automatic shortcuts, freeing consciousness for other tasks. That’s why you drive to work without remembering the curves along the way, or respond to emails using the same language patterns without even thinking. This automation, though useful for mechanical tasks, becomes poisonous when applied to the totality of professional existence.
Take Marina, a financial analyst who stayed fifteen years at the same corporation. In the early years, each spreadsheet was a puzzle to decipher, each report an opportunity for improvement. By year ten, her fingers danced across the keyboard on autopilot, producing flawless documents while her mind wandered through distant landscapes. By year fifteen, she realized something frightening: she had stopped learning. Her cognitive repertoire was frozen in time, like software that never receives updates. The market around her had evolved—artificial intelligence, predictive analytics, interactive data visualization—while she remained a master of obsolete tools.
Stability had played a cruel trick: it transformed competence into complacency. And when the corporate merger arrived, Marina discovered that her valuable expertise within those walls was invisible to the outside world. She had become fluent in a dialect that existed only in that company, mastering processes no other organization used. Her fifteen years of experience paradoxically counted for less than the versatility of a professional with five years spread across three different environments.

The Corporate Identity Trap
Reflect on how we build our identities. We are narrative beings, weaving meaning through the stories we tell about ourselves. “I have worked at Company X for twelve years” is not just factual information; it is an identity anchor, an automatic answer to the question, “Who are you?” But what happens when the organization becomes so intertwined with your sense of self that leaving it feels like amputation?
Consider Paulo, an operations manager who dedicated eighteen years to the same multinational. Every achievement, promotion, and recognition was etched into the walls of that building. His friends were colleagues, his cultural references were inside jokes, even his vocabulary was saturated with corporate acronyms. When he thought of leaving, an existential vertigo paralyzed him: “If I’m not Paulo from Company Y, who am I?”
This identity fusion is dangerous because it creates emotional dependency disguised as loyalty. Paulo did not stay for growth or satisfaction; he stayed because leaving would require rebuilding his self-image from scratch. He had outsourced his identity to the organization, and now it held him hostage. Worse: when the company initiated restructuring, Paulo was laid off. The devastation was not just financial but ontological. He lost not only a job but the sense of who he was.
Compare this with Júlia, who built a portable professional identity. In nine years of career, she worked at four companies across different sectors. When introducing herself, she said: “I am a specialist in digital transformation in complex environments,” not “I work at Company Z.” Her identity was anchored in transferable skills, personal values, and the ability to generate impact regardless of the logo on her badge. When she decided to change, the transition was fluid because she was greater than any single organization.

Security or Illusion?
What if the stability we seek never truly existed? We live under the illusion inherited from previous generations, when implicit contracts promised: “Be loyal, work hard, and the company will take care of you until retirement.” That era quietly died over the past decades, yet many still operate with its outdated map.
Consider Ricardo, who rejected three promising external opportunities because he “had stability” as an IT coordinator for eleven years. He believed in reciprocity: his loyalty would be met with security. Then came the merger. His department was absorbed, his position redundant, and “stability” evaporated in a fifteen-minute meeting. Ricardo discovered that real security did not come from longevity in one place, but from the ability to navigate across places—something he had neglected to cultivate.
Contrast this with Fernanda, who after five years at a respected consultancy deliberately chose to experience a startup, then an NGO, and finally return to the corporate sector in a leadership role. Each move was strategic, expanding her portfolio of experiences. When economic crises shook the market, Fernanda had networks in multiple sectors, proven skills across contexts, and adaptation stories that made her attractive precisely because of her diversity. Her security was not deposited in any organization but built within herself.
Neuroscience of stress teaches us something crucial: controlled exposure to challenges strengthens response systems. Rats raised in enriched environments with varied stimuli develop more plastic and resilient brains than those in predictable settings. Humans are no different. The “stability” of never facing transitions leaves us with atrophied adaptive muscles. When inevitable change arrives, we are unprepared, like a runner who never trained being forced to run a marathon.

The Silent Erosion of Skills
There is a phenomenon I call “competence obsolescence through immobility.” It is not only that you stop learning new things; the skills you have start losing relevance even while you master them perfectly.
Consider Rodrigo, a specialist in a proprietary technology platform of his company. He is the internal reference, the undisputed master of that tool. But this expertise is like the currency of a collapsing country: invaluable within borders, useless outside them. Fifteen years passed, and while Rodrigo deepened vertically in that microscopic niche, the world adopted different technologies. His impressive depth became a trap. He is simultaneously overqualified and underqualified.
Compare with Beatriz, who every three years changed companies, always seeking challenges that forced her to learn something substantially new. She implemented CRM in a retail company, led agile transformation in a fintech, structured operations in a healthtech. Each transition forced her to shed certainties and relearn from scratch. Yes, it was uncomfortable. Yes, there were moments of insecurity. But after twelve years, Beatriz had something no diploma can confer: fluency in navigating the unknown. Her skills were meta-skills—the ability to learn quickly, read organizational cultures, and translate knowledge across contexts.
Behavioral psychology reveals that deep learning requires “desirable difficulties”—obstacles that force the brain to work harder to consolidate knowledge. Staying where everything is familiar eliminates these difficulties. You operate at maximum efficiency but minimum growth. It is like always lifting the same weight: eventually, the muscle stops growing and merely maintains.

When Organizational Culture Becomes a Prison
Organizations develop cultures—sets of invisible norms, values, and ways of seeing the world. Prolonged permanence not only exposes you to this culture; it cognitively colonizes you. You begin to assume that “things are done this way” not because it is the best method, but because it is the only method you know.
Take Antônio, an executive who rose internally for nineteen years in a traditional hierarchical organization. When he finally moved to a company with a horizontal, self-managed structure, he experienced profound cultural shock. He could not function without clear approval lines, was paralyzed by autonomy, and interpreted open debates as lack of leadership. It was not lack of intelligence; his synapses had been shaped by two decades of conditioning. Reprogramming himself at forty-five was neurologically harder than it would have been at thirty.
Contrast with Camila, who deliberately alternated between large corporations and startups. Each change was an intentional shock. She learned multiple organizational languages, becoming culturally trilingual: fluent in structured processes, agile in chaotic environments, able to navigate and translate between worlds. This versatility made her a valuable bridge in mergers, transformations, or any situation requiring navigation between paradigms.
For Human and Organizational Cognitive-Behavioral Development (HO-CBD), strong cultures, while creating internal cohesion, also create perceptual bubbles. Prolonged permanence intensifies this effect. You stop questioning assumptions because they have become the air you breathe—invisible, assumed, unquestionable. Periodically leaving oxygenates thought, exposing you to alternative ways to organize work, solve problems, and relate to hierarchies.

The Cruel Math of the Learning Curve
Every position has a classic learning curve: in the first months, absorption is intense—everything is new, each day brings discoveries. Between six months and two years, competence grows, still learning but more comfortably. After three years in the same role, the curve begins to flatten dramatically. You may still produce value, but personal growth stagnates.
Imagine two fifteen-year careers:
• Trajectory A – Carlos: 15 years in the same company, same area. Years 1-3: intense learning. Years 4-7: consolidation and refinement. Years 8-15: maintenance and incremental improvement. Total learning curve: 3 cycles of intense growth.
• Trajectory B – Laura: 15 years, 4 different companies, each change bringing new tools, cultures, challenges. Years 1-3 at Company 1: intense learning. Years 4-7 at Company 2: new intense learning. Years 8-11 at Company 3: more intense learning. Years 12-15 at Company 4: intense learning again. Total learning curve: 12+ cycles of intense growth.
The difference is exponential. Laura not only learned more; she trained her capacity to learn, developing cognitive plasticity that Carlos let atrophy. When both face unprecedented situations, Laura has meta-tools forged in multiple furnaces; Carlos has deep but narrow expertise.
This does not mean that staying put is always negative. It means that staying without intentional growth is wasting the most fertile years of your professional life in soil that has already given all it could.

Discomfort as a Compass for Growth
Here’s an uncomfortable truth: if you have felt completely comfortable at work for more than two years, you have probably stopped growing. Total comfort signals that there is not enough friction to generate transformation. It’s like still water – it may seem calm, but it’s creating conditions for stagnation.
Think of Daniela, who after six years in a position where she mastered absolutely everything, felt something strange that took time to name: existential boredom. It wasn’t acute unhappiness, but a subtle aridity, the sensation of repeating a play whose script she had already memorized. When she finally accepted an offer that frightened her – leading a completely new department in another company – the first months were agonizing. She woke up with that “first day of school” feeling: uncertain, vulnerable. But something extraordinary happened: she felt alive again. The discomfort was not a problem; it was evidence of expansion.
Flow psychology, researched by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, shows that deep engagement occurs in the delicate zone between boredom (task too easy) and anxiety (task impossible). Prolonged permanence in the same role inevitably slides into boredom because you become too expert to be challenged. Deliberate change is a way to redefine the equation, returning to that growth zone where you are competent enough to have a chance of success, but not so much that victory is guaranteed.

Redesigning the Loyalty Narrative
The word “loyalty” has been hijacked and distorted. Organizations want you to be loyal to them, but that loyalty is almost always one-sided. How many “loyal” companies kept employees during crises? How many prioritized people over shareholder profits? The uncomfortable answer: few.
Rethink loyalty not as unconditional permanence, but as a commitment to excellence during the time you are there. Be fiercely loyal to your values, your growth, your mental health. Be loyal to the people who genuinely invest in you. But question blind loyalty to a corporate entity that, ultimately, will make decisions based on spreadsheets, not your biography.
Vicente learned this painfully. He turned down external opportunities out of “loyalty” to the company that gave him his first chance. When the company was sold and the new management cleaned house, Vicente was discarded without ceremony. The loyalty he offered was not reciprocated. He had sacrificed mobility, external networking, market updates – all on the altar of a loyalty the company never promised to return.
Compare this with Isabel, who practiced “loyalty with mobility.” At each company, she delivered with total excellence, built genuine relationships, and left tangible legacies. But she also kept her network active, attended market events, and was always learning. When moves made strategic sense for her growth, she moved – not out of disloyalty, but out of loyalty to the larger project of building a sustainable, meaningful career. Interestingly, her former companies respected her more for this, often consulting or re-inviting her in new capacities.

Specialization That Traps
“Be a specialist” is a mantra repeated ad nauseam. But specialist in what? In a tool that will be obsolete in five years? In a process that exists only in that company? In an industry being disrupted?
There are two forms of specialization: vertical (deepening infinitely in a narrow niche) and horizontal (developing expertise in connecting different domains). The first makes you indispensable in a specific context and invisible outside it. The second makes you adaptable and valuable across multiple contexts.
Excessive permanence favors vertical specialization. Strategic moves cultivate horizontal specialization. I’m not arguing against depth – mastery is magnificent. I’m questioning mastery that traps you rather than frees you.
Consider Luís, a tax attorney who spent seventeen years in a single law firm, becoming the undisputed authority on a specific tax regime. When that regime was reformed by legislation, his expertise evaporated overnight. Decades of knowledge became history. And because he never developed adaptive muscle, reinvention at forty-eight was brutal.
Contrast this with Renata, also a lawyer, who intentionally moved between law firms of varying sizes and specializations – tax, labor, corporate – and then into a company’s legal department, finally into a legaltech. She was not the top expert in any single niche, but she had a panoramic vision that allowed her to connect dots that narrow specialists could not see. When disruptions happened, she was prepared because she had already navigated multiple transformations.

Signs That Stability Has Become Stagnation
How do you know if you’ve crossed the invisible line between healthy permanence and comfortable imprisonment? Ask yourself:
1. Can you clearly articulate what you learned in the last 12 months? If your answer is vague or only refers to minor refinements, red alert.
2. Could you secure an equivalent or higher position at another company today? If your honest answer is “I don’t know” or “probably not,” your skills may be undervalued externally.
3. Are your professional conversations mostly retrospective? If you keep talking about projects and achievements from years ago, you may be navigating past glories because the present offers no exciting narratives.
4. Do you feel butterflies thinking about going to work? Not negative anxiety, but the healthy excitement of knowing you will be challenged. If that feeling is gone, it’s a warning sign.
5. Has your professional network shrunk? When you stop meeting new people and being exposed to different ways of thinking, your professional ecosystem withers.
6. Do you fantasize about moving but never act? Recurring fantasies of being elsewhere are unrecognized symptoms of chronic dissatisfaction.
7. Do you justify staying more out of fear than aspiration? “At least here I know how it works,” “What if I don’t adapt?” “I’m close to retirement” – these are defenses, not choices.

Redesigning Your Relationship With Mobility
I’m not preaching chaotic hyperactivity – jumping from job to job without intention is as problematic as perpetual immobility. What I propose is intentional mobility: strategic movement guided by purpose, not by escape or superficial boredom.
Each move should answer clear questions:
• What am I here to master that I didn’t know before? If you already mastered it, maybe it’s time for new mastery.
• Does this environment still offer challenges that expand me? If not, you are maintaining or declining, not growing.
• Am I building transferable skills or proprietary knowledge? The former empowers; the latter traps.
• Do my core values find expression here? If there is chronic dissonance, no salary compensates internal erosion.
Think of your career not as a straight line, but as an ascending spiral. You may revisit themes or sectors, but always at a higher level of awareness and capability. Each turn of the spiral adds perspective that would not exist without the diversity of experiences.

The Courage to Unlearn and Grow
Perhaps the greatest challenge of mobility is not learning the new, but unlearning the old. Every organization programs you with invisible assumptions; change requires courage to question these programs and humility to be a novice again.
Marta, after twelve years in a multinational pharmaceutical company, assumed a position in a digital health startup. Her first instinct was to implement processes that “worked” in her previous experience. It took painful months to realize she was trying to transplant an elephant’s circulatory system into a cat’s body. Real growth began when she accepted that much of her “expertise” was, in fact, contextual knowledge that did not apply there. She had to unlearn to relearn.
This is the internal work of mobility: maintaining your core identity while releasing peripheral certainties. A continuous process of death and rebirth, where old versions of yourself must be honored and released for new versions to emerge.

Auditing Your Stability
Here’s a deep honesty exercise:
• Take a sheet and draw a timeline of your career.
• Mark moments of real growth, where discomfort generated transformation.
• Mark periods of comfort, where you operated on autopilot.
Which line dominates your chart? If comfort occupies more than 60% of the last five years, you are in a risk zone. You don’t necessarily need to change companies now, but it’s time to reintroduce challenge – take on bold internal projects, learn radical skills, or consider strategic mobility.
Ask yourself: if my company disappeared tomorrow, would I thrive elsewhere? If your answer is hesitant, your “stability” is illusory. You built a beautiful castle… but on quicksand.
The safest professional life is not anchored in a single organization, but in adaptability, a broad network, transferable skills, and courage cultivated through multiple journeys into the unknown. The question that matters is not “should I stay or leave?” but “am I growing or vegetating?” If the answer is the latter, no apparent stability justifies silently wasting your most powerful years.

Employee and Organization
And what about the company? It is also a protagonist in this cycle: retention cannot be bought with contracts or rules, but earned by offering relevance, strategic challenges, and real growth opportunities. Organizations that see their talent as living agents of learning and innovation do not need to fear turnover; they learn to grow alongside each employee.
• The secret is rethinking leadership and organizational design:
• Invest in your team strategically and intentionally.
• Offer challenges that stimulate cognitive and practical expansion.
• Allow each professional to understand more than their role, diving into the organization’s full vision.
• Transform continuous learning into tangible experiences that engage and empower.
The word of the moment is challenge – for both employees and leaders. Those who only master routines do not grow; those who master growth do not get lost. Knowledge must keep pace with the company: not just to avoid loss, but to create an ecosystem that retains, engages, and transforms.
Healthy companies do not hold talent out of obligation; they captivate, expand, and empower. Engaged employees do not stay out of fear – they stay because learning, contributing, and developing within that organization has become irresistible and strategic for everyone.
To conclude, a provocation:
“The question is not just ‘should I change or stay?’ – it is ‘am I growing or quietly settling?’ And the answer you avoid may be the greatest waste of your career.”
Explore more reflections on behavioral cognitive development, organizational transformation, and conscious human relations on my blog (www.marcellodesouza.com.br), where hundreds of articles await to challenge your perspective and inspire profound, lasting change. Discover unprecedented paths for truly transformative professional and personal growth.

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