Golden handcuffs: Six ways to loosen them up a bit

Getting rid of a pair of golden handcuffs may be one of the first things on your mind. Here's hoping this puts things into perspective …

You may have heard of the golden handcuffs — deferred payoffs offered by an employer to discourage employees from seeking employment elsewhere.

The golden handcuffs can also mean having a job that's too good to quit. Possibly because the job is necessary to support your lifestyle.

It's mainly for the second reason that unshackling yourself from the golden handcuffs gets more difficult as you get older. There are mortgages to pay, college accounts to fund, and IRAs to invest in.

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What do the golden handcuffs look like?

Regular handcuffs — like the kind you might have seen on cop shows — have only a few links of chain between the cuff. They serve to restrain the suspect by limiting what they can do with their hands and arms. They're also a pain to take off under normal circumstances.

I'm convinced that golden handcuffs are quite a bit different, and not really like real handcuffs at all. They instead:

have a very long chain so that you move your arms pretty much how you like,
aren't overly tight so that you can do pretty much what you want with your hands, and
may even be comfortable to wear.

Golden handcuffs are long enough, and comfortable enough, that you could go through your life wearing them without too much distress, and at the same time do many different things to remove them.

What does this mean for you?

Regardless of how comfortable or how unrestraining the golden handcuffs are, they're still handcuffs. There's still the job to go to, the bosses to answer to, the commute to endure.

The restraints aren't physical, just more situational and psychological:

Your location. Want to live somewhere else? There's that job to deal with. You may not be able to transfer it, or the prospects of finding another one at the same income level may be difficult.
Your finances. Want to live somewhere else? There may be a house to sell. Can you sell it? It may be underwater: more is owed on it than it can be sold for. That job needs to be there to pay down the mortgage, lest there be severe financial consequences.
Your creative energy. Want to forge ahead in a new area? Your employer gets the best hours of your day, and takes everything they can get, and perhaps more. Anything you try to start up during the time you're employed with a company can end up being theirs, regardless of what time of day, and on whose computer, you actually did the work. (Sometimes they may own it regardless.) There may be no such thing as “off the clock.” The clock may always be on.
Your time. This is the biggest restraint. As they say: “You can make more money, but you can't make more time.” It ticks by at the alarming rate of one day each and every day, never to return. Time is far more valuable than money.

How to remove those (admittedly comfortable) gold handcuffs

Realize that times of consumption can turn into times of creation. Instead of watching television, record a YouTube video. Instead of reading a book, write one. Instead of listening to music, compose some. Instead of buying decorative things, create them. Invest in yourself!
Realize the benefits of golden handcuffs. Connected to those handcuffs is not just you, but a job, and a pretty good one at that. One to be thankful for. The steady income is a benefit because it adds stability in a way that being a business owner or an entrepreneur may not.
Realize that you can (and probably should) take small steps. From the security that a good job provides, you can afford to take things at a low-risk pace. This slow-rolling path to a new vocation isn't for everyone, but it is an option, and I think a wise one. Having this option is good because it's likely that there are other people in the mix besides just you. Putting yourself out on the street with a failed venture is one thing, but putting a family out on the street is another thing entirely.
Realize that you can take small steps, starting now. You can install RescueTime or something similar to begin to wring out some of the Quadrant IV time-wasters. Then, you can create some SMART financial goals to begin loosening up those golden handcuffs.
Realize that it is unlikely to happen overnight. Like H. Jackson Brown, Jr., said, “Remember that overnight success takes about fifteen years.” Working (maybe) ten to fifteen hours a week on a project will take longer than working 50-60 hours a week on it. Add to this time to “get into the zone” after being in a different, probably unrelated zone.
Realize that … maybe you don't have golden handcuffs on at all? Golden handcuffs aren't real handcuffs, of course. They're our own mental creations. Why are you wearing them? What makes you believe that you have them on? Maybe what's needed is an adjustment in what you have rather than a wholesale change.