Balancing Purpose and Pay: Understanding Earnings in a Climate Career Transition
(Reading time 12 minutes)
Money Money Money. It is the big ugly question in the mind of most people looking to make a career pivot, mid career
I’ve been wanting to write this piece for along time.
But the fear of being patronising, and giving smart and educated professionals like you ‘money advice’ has made me hesitate.
So here’s the deal. I am not a financial advisor and I am not going to give you either a sack of cash nor carte blanche to take unrealistic risks with your life earnings.
But I AM going to share a series of frameworks that might help you explore the various ways you can manage both how you think and feel about money as well as novel ideas to manage your finances.
Clear? Good, let’s get into it…
Do any of these worries and fears sound familiar to you?
Am I really prepared to accept a pay cut just to do work that matters to me?
"Will I still be able to provide the life I want for my kids?"
I’m the primary earner, and I’ve worked hard to get to a decent salary. How can I take a step down, even if it’s to work in a field that feels meaningful?
Losing that secure income—it's a scary prospect.
I can’t stop work now and spend time looking for my dream job, I can’t afford it
When it comes to making a career pivot there are two big sources of worry relating to money and because of the scale of the topic I am writing this in two parts:
PART ONE Will I have to earn less (and will that matter)?
PART TWO - How do I finance my transition? (Without selling a body part)
The Grip of Golden Handcuffs
When we don’t address fundamental questions about income and value, the “golden handcuffs” binding us to our current work stay firmly in place, making it harder to shift toward more fulfilling paths. Not having answers to the above questions keeps us stuck
Will I Have To Earn Less?
Is it in your head?
The belief that “meaningful work has to pay less” can come from ‘pessimism bias in the face of poor evidence, and potentially from a guilt complex.
Pessimism Bias Effect
Bluntly; we expect things to be worse than they really are as a means of protecting ourselves from perceived risk. Mansour, S.B., Jouini, E. & Napp, C. get into the weeds of this in their 2006 paper on the subject. But essentially what it means is that until we have some solid evidence we lean toward negative beliefs. Statistically speaking you are more likely to be wrong about low salary expectations than right.
Guilt Complexity aka “The Martyrdom Effect”
Secondly some people feel there should be punishment for doing something for themselves. This might come down to what’s known as the "martyrdom effect"—the idea that if something feels noble or worthwhile, we almost expect it to come with some level of hardship or sacrifice.
A study published in Frontiers in Psychology backs this up, showing that people are willing to accept significantly lower pay for work they find meaningful. It’s an ingrained belief that if the work feeds your soul, it shouldn’t also fill your bank account.
Ultimately the part of us that is fearing change absolutely LOVES these two cognitive biases. Happy to steamroller evidence to the contrary, to back your hesitation and get in the way of your career shift.
So how do we fight back?
Go. Find. Out.
“In the absence of light, we invent monsters. Go turn the light on.”
Here are your sources of income data to help put some evidence in your hands
Publicly Available Job Descriptions With Salary
10 US states HAVE to publish salaries as part of posting job ads. (Or supply on request), so go find the publicly available salaries of the roles you are interested in (LinkedIn filters to set geography to one of these states, and then bench mark against your current role to understand the potential gap, or for amore sophisticated approach factor the cost of living index into you calculation (Google for help with that):
California, Colorado, Connecticut, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Washington, Illinois
Salary Comparison Sites
Alternatively, skip the manual work for a slightly more generic evaluation at sites like these; Indeed.com, Glassdoor.com and PayScale.com offer comparitive riole related salary comparisons.
Incidentally a metastudy of these three sites concluded: “Sustainability roles, particularly at managerial and consultancy levels, often offer competitive salaries that are on par with or exceed those of traditional roles.”
So the earning potential is there, but that might not mean you can take a perfect sideways step with pay parity. What about having to take a more junior role because you are less qualified,
But I Have No Skills!!
New Work In A New Context
What about having to step backwards to a more junior role, or rather, a role for which you genuinely are less ABLE to do than your current one? Going to take a pay cut then?
The answer to that is “maybe”.
If you have decided you want a technical role, and you have no technical skills for that role at present then a) be sure your time scales are realistic and b) yes you are likely to be taking a pay cut. Your Contribution is going to be limited by your technical experience.
However, as a mid carer professional you have something that many others ‘competing’ for the work you want to do. Namely managerial experience and highly developed soft skills.
Only 8% of sustainability professionals rated technical skills as more important than soft skills in their work.
So even if you are new to the technical requirements of CSRD reporting frameworks for example, the hard work of stakeholder management, programme delivery, and cross functional collaboration (all of which are essential to collate and deliver the report) are more likely to be in your past life right?
So DO NOT UNDER SELL YOURSELF. When framing your value emphasising your ability to deliver complex work, across the organisation is going to be what matters.
Same Work - Different Context
If you are looking to shift sectors, but stay within you functional area of expertise then the opportunities to find pay parity (or better) are higher. Your management and leadership experience will be valued just as much in well funded scales ups and mature organisations looking to address their sustainability mission
Startups and ‘close to innovation’ tech companies, less so) see here for how The Hype Cycle helps you determine your likely degree of fit based on organisational maturity
💡 If you are looking for scale-up work, where your more generalist skills are more likely to be appreciated pay close attention to the funding cycle of target company.
Recently funded organisation will be kicking off a hiring spree soon after the money arrives. And you can find that out from resources like these:
Great sources for that...
Is it money, or is it status?
Salary as status is a lazy shortcut, but one we almost all take.
Your value is more than the figure you earn, although that is hard to accept or appreciate especially if you are used to relying on it as a sense of self worth, or as a way to be “Keeping Up With the Jones”.
Because salary is so easily quantified, and is used in value exchange negotiations all the time it is easy to be trapped by the view that your worth is accurately reflected in your earnings.
It is possible you might not even recognise this about yourself. It is such an ingrained and prevalent point of view especially in the successful competitive professional arena that you’ve spent the past decade working in.
This is unhelpful.
It might blind us to the opportunity of more fulfilling work (and life) because we are concerned about what it MEANS to have a lower number against our name in the big book of social reckoning. (Note: This is a fictitious plot device, don’t panic)
panic)
Status Anxiety
In his book “Status Anxiety” Alain De Botton suggests four practical approaches to address what he describes as ‘inherited beliefs about success’
Redefine Success Beyond Wealth Challenge society's equation of success with financial gain. Define success on your terms, focusing on what truly satisfies you—meaningful work, relationships, or personal growth.
Seek Community Over Competition Join communities that value support and shared purpose over wealth and status. Surrounding yourself with people who prioritize connection over comparison can ease the pressure to measure up financially.
Gain Perspective Through Art and History Engage with literature, history, and art to remind yourself that financial status is fleeting. This broader view can help reduce money-related comparisons by highlighting universal human experiences and values.
Focus on 'Being' Instead of 'Having' Shift your focus from accumulating wealth to developing your inner qualities and personal growth. By concentrating on who you want to be, rather than what you want to own, you'll naturally reduce money-related anxieties.
Get some perspective
A study published in Psychological Science found that people across various income levels consistently desired approximately 20% more income to feel satisfied.
The hedonic treadmill is part of our culture, hell it is part of our biology and psychology. To be seeking gratification via stimulus response (aka shopping and spending) has a direct evolutionary root in our Dopamine response to it.
But Dopamine degrades. The toys we buy lose their appeal quickly and we are left wanting more. Sigh.
SO how can we reframe our thinking about money to allow us to operate with our true best interests at heart?
The Best Things in Life are NOT Free. But They Might Not Cost You Any Money
Value is correctly equated to what things cost. However, what gets over looked is that the concept of cost here isn’t a count of the money required to get it.What really makes something valuable is how hard you have to work to get it.
If I gave you an Olympic Gold medal tomorrow morning, for the 100m sprint, and told you that you had won it in a lottery of people who get the award monthly, would you put it on your mantle piece?
No of course not. But, when you think about what might actually make it onto your metaphoric mantle, your “4th place in the local triathlon trophy” might be there right? It is the result of the countless hours training, of the blood sweat and tears you put into getting it.
Not only that, when you think about the work that you put in, it was all part of the experience right? It was fulfilling in its own right.
It is the effort and how we value it that counts.
This is true of how we work too. When we are given a paycheck for something we don’t particularly value, it gives us no sense of pride, nor of fulfillment.
When we switch to finding our motivation and reward in purpose driven work, the imperative to be earning more lessens as the intrinsic motivation and the value system we use to judge our happiness shifts in line with our efforts toward something we value. So says researchers Ryan and Deci in their 2000 paper outlining their framework of Self-Determination Theory.
And so does the desire for spending it too. Much of our disposable income is spent on activities that fill a void. A void left by the exhausting and draining effort of doing work we don’t take an intrinsic reward from.
Research in Psychological Science journal found that sadness can lead to higher spending, a phenomenon termed the "misery is not miserly" effect.
A somewhat vicious cycle.
What does this mean to you when you are considering a change that might have a downward shift in pay associated with it? Simply put: it might not be as bad as you think. We typically use our past experience and our current prejudice to forecast how we will experience a new state of being.
But, you are a very different person now compared to earlier in your career when your earnings were less, and you will be again as part of this transition so using your current point of view might not be the reliable source you think it is, AND the evidence suggests that your concerns are currently overinflated because you currently over-rely on high disposal income to substitute for a deeper happiness.
Turn The Volume Down On Comparisons
Many (many) years ago I was living in a squat on the West Coast. Surfing during the day, partying during the night. The people I hung out with were, um pretty easy going and ‘free spirited’ when it came to earning potential, material goods and cash related opulence.
Less than a decade later I was involved in the competitive ‘cost of my watch’ conversation in a private members club in London’s financial district (I lost, obviously, I didn’t have a watch)
It was easy for me to feel rich in one environment and poor in the other. My life was far more rich surfing with my squatter community buddies, but far more poor with the bankers. (Plot Twist!)
The point here though is one of peer groups and comparisons. No matter how smart and ‘above such things’ you think you are, your peer group influences your sense of self.
However, you have control over who you compare yourself to. Especially given a shift in your comparison set can be as easy as unfollowing someone on social media and spending a little time curating your inputs. Want to try it, one of my most recommended exercises is right here for you (see below)
Do It For Them
Use the emotional pull of what it would mean, to you and those who love you, to able to look forward to Monday mornings, and have less fear and loathing, on any given Sunday night.
In the balancing of the books when it comes to finance and earning potential. An element that is often overlooked is that the impact is far bigger than just you.
When you do work that matters your ability to develop and care for the relationships around you improves too.
So as part of picturing that future self, on the other side of your career pivot don’t forget to visualise the smiles on the faces of those most dear to you. You’ll be seeing them a lot more when you are doing work that you feel good about.
Do it for them, if not for you.
Summing Up
None of this is easy. But it is important. After reading all of the above, take some time to reflect on what money actually means for you. Write a few paragraphs about you relationship to money, what it symbolises in your life and where you think those thoughts come from.
Then scribble down how you would LIKE to feel about this relationship. If there is an incongruence skim back up this article and pick a few points that resonate and would be useful in transitioning your thinking.
And as ever, you want more help in over coming your money worries as part of your climate career pivot, let’s talk. Grab a zero obligation 30 minute conversation via the “Lets Talk” button in the header.
