3 ms·

I am in the midst of one. It has been about a year and a half, plus or minus, and it has taken a tremendous toll on my well-being. I find it especially difficu

by atdt 9y ago

I am in the midst of one. It has been about a year and a half, plus or minus, and it has taken a tremendous toll on my well-being. I find it especially difficult to deal with the mismatch between my sense of what I can do, which is calibrated to my former self, and what I can actually deliver. I desperately need to believe that what I am going through is a temporary perturbation, so I keep trying to "shake it off", and I make plans and commitments from a sense of self that is still stubbornly calibrated to who I was then and not what I am today. As the months turn into years, that sense of competence seems increasingly fantastical and dubious. Was I ever good at my job? Did I suck then, too, and just fail to realize it? These doubts are compounded by the fact that I have changed employers and change teams multiple times so no one I work with now is acquainted with that former self. But he really did exist, at one point. I swear he did. At least I think he did. > When you are playing really well ... you can’t even imagine playing badly. And when you are playing badly, you can’t even remember what it felt like to play well. (Tiger Woods: How Low Can He Go http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/tiger-woods-how-low-can-he-go http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/tiger-woods-how-l...)

l8nite 9y ago
This is exactly how I feel. It has also been a year and a half or so for me. I don't think I'm ever going back to my former self.
- ben_jones 9y ago
  I've been through a similar experience and feel the same way (also around a year and a half for me). Recently I've concluded that the best thing I can do is form daily habits to help bring me closer to where I want to be. Whether that's keeping a strict sleep schedule, exercising more regularly, working on a specific hobby regularly, etc. There really should be support groups for this sort of thing - message boards don't quite help it.
dnautics 9y ago
my sense of burnout (having been through it myself and watched closely about 10-12 people go through it) is that it's caused when there's a huge mismatch between an expected reward and a large amount of effort expended prior to the reward. What was the event that caused you to burn out in the first place? It looks like you expected at least social (if not material) recognition for some herculean effort that you went through - it failed to arrive when you cliffed out, and you're not obtaining that due to the circumstances in the meantime? If I'm right (I may not be). My suggestion would be to make sure you're on teams or a project where there is a direct relationship between effort and reward, or where you can work on small projects that don't come with a 'big payoff' but can rebuild your confidence that you can provide value to your org. You should also try to be under a manager that is good at recognizing (verbally if not anything else) your achievements. If you don't think you can find that easily, take some time off and go drive for lyft. (Don't expect to make too much money off if it, so only plan to do it for a short bit). There's a direct relationship between effort and reward in that industry.
- atdt 9y ago
  That's not how it happened in my case. I was promoted to a manager role that I wasn't suited for, and pretended I could just go on being an individual contributor while still handling the managerial role. I went from doing good work as a developer to mediocre work as a manager, and I started seeing personal failure in everything I touched. I left the organization after that and moved across the country to take another job. That was the summer / spring of 2016. My five-year-old, who was otherwise healthy, started having tonic-clonic ("grand mal") seizures around that time. Neither my wife or I have a history of epilepsy in our families and neither of us had seen a grand mal seizure before, so we thought he was dying. My wife called 911 while I ran downstairs with him in my arms and I basically screamed until the ambulance arrived. He had another seizure about a month after that, and a month after that, and so on. The peak came in August 25 of 2016, when he had a series of seizures in rapid succession (status epilepticus), landing him (and us) in the ICU. I will spare you the details. He is healthy now -- we were fortunate enough to find an anti-seizure drug that is effective at controlling his seizures. But his parents (i.e., us) haven't recovered entirely. There are other factors that have caused turbulence over the past couple of years, but they pale in comparison. I've had a lot on my plate. I know other people who have dealt with / are dealing with worse, with greater poise than I can muster, but I am who I am. I can't quit my job and drive for Lyft. I have a family to support.
  - freakycangooroo 9y ago
    I just want to say that i've had several burnouts throughout life so far, the majority being during key projects for my school/university. This has become a recurrent event as it is now happening also during my work. Anxiety feeds it. In any case, i also have history of grand mal seizures and sleep deprivation is one of the key triggers for this. I'm actively trying to improve my lifestyle and take control of my life. As my neurologist said: focus on psychohygiene.
- TimJYoung 9y ago
  Having dealt with minor periods of burnout (nothing like that described by the parent poster), I can certainly affirm that what you suggest worked very well for me. I normally do home improvement jobs when I get into situations like that: painting a room, landscaping in the yard, etc. You get an immediate (or almost immediate) sense of accomplishment, and that small boost can have an out-sized effect on one's outlook towards software development tasks. It gets the ball (state of mind) back to moving in the positive direction...
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
BlackjackCF 9y ago
Oh god. You're describing exactly what I'm feeling. I felt that way about being in lighting design after a while. I had worked 60-80 hour weeks consistently, and towards the end I completely lost interest and felt that I can't deliver. I swapped into software engineering and I've been pounding the pavement for almost 3 years, and I'm hitting this point. It's not like I don't love what I do... I just sometimes feel like I get stuck, and suddenly - I feel like I'm really not competent. I'm starting to worry that I just can't deliver.
- rangibaby 9y ago
  When I start feeling like your last couple of sentences I break my work up into a list of smaller easier tasks, do a couple then go and take a break for 30 min-a few hours. Go for a walk outside, have a shower, drink coffee at a cafe, have a nap, etc. anything that is away from my phone and computers. That usually calms me down enough to work more.

by atdt 9y ago

l8nite 9y ago

This is exactly how I feel. It has also been a year and a half or so for me. I don't think I'm ever going back to my former self.

ben_jones 9y ago
I've been through a similar experience and feel the same way (also around a year and a half for me). Recently I've concluded that the best thing I can do is form daily habits to help bring me closer to where I want to be. Whether that's keeping a strict sleep schedule, exercising more regularly, working on a specific hobby regularly, etc. There really should be support groups for this sort of thing - message boards don't quite help it.

dnautics 9y ago

my sense of burnout (having been through it myself and watched closely about 10-12 people go through it) is that it's caused when there's a huge mismatch between an expected reward and a large amount of effort expended prior to the reward. What was the event that caused you to burn out in the first place? It looks like you expected at least social (if not material) recognition for some herculean effort that you went through - it failed to arrive when you cliffed out, and you're not obtaining that due to the circumstances in the meantime? If I'm right (I may not be). My suggestion would be to make sure you're on teams or a project where there is a direct relationship between effort and reward, or where you can work on small projects that don't come with a 'big payoff' but can rebuild your confidence that you can provide value to your org. You should also try to be under a manager that is good at recognizing (verbally if not anything else) your achievements. If you don't think you can find that easily, take some time off and go drive for lyft. (Don't expect to make too much money off if it, so only plan to do it for a short bit). There's a direct relationship between effort and reward in that industry.

atdt 9y ago
That's not how it happened in my case. I was promoted to a manager role that I wasn't suited for, and pretended I could just go on being an individual contributor while still handling the managerial role. I went from doing good work as a developer to mediocre work as a manager, and I started seeing personal failure in everything I touched. I left the organization after that and moved across the country to take another job. That was the summer / spring of 2016. My five-year-old, who was otherwise healthy, started having tonic-clonic ("grand mal") seizures around that time. Neither my wife or I have a history of epilepsy in our families and neither of us had seen a grand mal seizure before, so we thought he was dying. My wife called 911 while I ran downstairs with him in my arms and I basically screamed until the ambulance arrived. He had another seizure about a month after that, and a month after that, and so on. The peak came in August 25 of 2016, when he had a series of seizures in rapid succession (status epilepticus), landing him (and us) in the ICU. I will spare you the details. He is healthy now -- we were fortunate enough to find an anti-seizure drug that is effective at controlling his seizures. But his parents (i.e., us) haven't recovered entirely. There are other factors that have caused turbulence over the past couple of years, but they pale in comparison. I've had a lot on my plate. I know other people who have dealt with / are dealing with worse, with greater poise than I can muster, but I am who I am. I can't quit my job and drive for Lyft. I have a family to support.
- freakycangooroo 9y ago
  I just want to say that i've had several burnouts throughout life so far, the majority being during key projects for my school/university. This has become a recurrent event as it is now happening also during my work. Anxiety feeds it. In any case, i also have history of grand mal seizures and sleep deprivation is one of the key triggers for this. I'm actively trying to improve my lifestyle and take control of my life. As my neurologist said: focus on psychohygiene.
TimJYoung 9y ago
Having dealt with minor periods of burnout (nothing like that described by the parent poster), I can certainly affirm that what you suggest worked very well for me. I normally do home improvement jobs when I get into situations like that: painting a room, landscaping in the yard, etc. You get an immediate (or almost immediate) sense of accomplishment, and that small boost can have an out-sized effect on one's outlook towards software development tasks. It gets the ball (state of mind) back to moving in the positive direction...

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

BlackjackCF 9y ago

Oh god. You're describing exactly what I'm feeling. I felt that way about being in lighting design after a while. I had worked 60-80 hour weeks consistently, and towards the end I completely lost interest and felt that I can't deliver. I swapped into software engineering and I've been pounding the pavement for almost 3 years, and I'm hitting this point. It's not like I don't love what I do... I just sometimes feel like I get stuck, and suddenly - I feel like I'm really not competent. I'm starting to worry that I just can't deliver.

rangibaby 9y ago
When I start feeling like your last couple of sentences I break my work up into a list of smaller easier tasks, do a couple then go and take a break for 30 min-a few hours. Go for a walk outside, have a shower, drink coffee at a cafe, have a nap, etc. anything that is away from my phone and computers. That usually calms me down enough to work more.