One general piece of advice that stuck with me after reading "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy" (a cognitive therapy book) is to refrain from thinking in inhe

One general piece of advice that stuck with me after reading "Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy" (a cognitive therapy book) is to refrain from thinking in inherent categories about myself. Thinking "I'm a slow developer" is just depressing and sad - there is nothing much you can do about your inherent flaw. By contrast, thinking "I've done this task slowly" puts you in a problem-solving mood. Something like "Wow, I've actually shipped, that's great! Now, it took me a bit more time than I've anticipated. Does it really matter? If it does, what can I do about it?" Also, a lot of this is just management trying to put pressure on the devs using methods more appropriate for a kindergarten. I vividly remember my former boss telling me "you are going to put down the team and have a bad conscience if you don't finish this feature on time" (an arbitrary deadline caused by a looming performance review). He was a good boss, but I would have more appreciated an honest "look, I'm trying to get you a raise so finishing this feature by this date is in our mutual interest" without any kind of moralizing shit.