This is a short summary of my month of finding what makes me tick and what made me get bored with my job.
Getting comfy
Getting comfortable with a steady salary and a good team of coworkers is hard to avoid. It happens to all of us at some point, the really big question is how do you get back to feeling like you have everything to lose when you have nothing to lose. I came to a point where my work stopped doing anything for me, it stopped being fun and it just began to feel monotonous. Lately I've been on a path of figuring out what makes me tick again and trying to find the focus I once had.
Take a step back
First thing I did was take a step back. Take some time off and do nothing, absolutely nothing! A week, month however long you need to catch up on reading, personal projects and so on... Don't give up on everything, just take a breather from your day to day work. And download prismatic, for me reading a lot about our industry and going through some nice articles every day helped a lot!
Take a step forward
Find something new! Find something you've never done before. For me its iOS development. I jumped into Objective C and Swift with 0 knowledge of how the Apple ecosystem works. Then I reconnected with people that are in the same industry. I reached out to all my twitter friends who I knew for a long time just lost touch with. Find out what they are up to, and hearing some fun stories about amazing and cool projects will do some good. At least it got excited about my work again.
Go back
Stepping back into my day to day routine was actually the hardest part of this. Going back to the stuff I intentionally ran away from? Yep! But take a different angle. Don't look at it as a job, look at it as a new job! Pretty simple actually. Just try and find the thing that got you this job anyway. For me it was a grand vision of our future product. And it kind of faded away at least for me. So I worked really hard on generating new ideas about what we do and who we are.
Find out whats next
The next step to take was pretty easy for me. I have an amazing team who supports my insane ideas and always gives me feedback. So my next step? Work on an elevator pitch for my team. I got this brilliant idea of something so simple it's silly we didn't think about it earlier. So that's how I'm currently trying to get my fire back again. Right now I'm back to pen and paper and away from my screen. I'm going on a trip this week with my lovely girl and just do nothing but brainstorm my new pitch. I think the idea is amazing, but I have to present it in such a way that I can get everyone else on the team excited about it. So that was my can of gas on a freshly lit candle. A brand new take on something I've been working on for the past three years. Now I just need to figure out how I'm going to get this freakin' voice out of my head, and onto some slides!
Join The Discussion (4 Comments)
Submit CommentDan Barrett
Hey Zan, Fantastic article. I am relatively new to this industry but I guess you could feel the same in any line of work. But, never-the-less I found it a very interesting read and even in my infancy to the web dev world I have found myself at times wondering if I would ever begin to feel like this and I am glad I am not alone with these feelings as it would appear that it does actually happen. Great advice on stepping away from the computer to re-evaluate and take things back to grass roots too, it is sometimes hard to do that in the hectic industry that it is.
Posted 9 years ago
Zan
Thanks for the comments guys! @Francis Absolutely. The mind is everything, and the battle with yourself is the hardest one! @Kevin I have no idea how long this flame will last now, but I have learned that once you get the ball rolling you just need to have something on the side that keeps you away from thinking about work 100% of the time! For me its long road trips and beer+food with my best friends. So just keep something in your day to day that gets your mind away from work!
Posted 9 years ago
Francisc Aknai
Hey Zan, Pretty interesting way of relighting the fire that drives us day by day in this business. Sometimes we are overwhelmed by the monotony of our work and slow we drift away from our goals and the fire starts to burn out. That's when we have to make a choice. Do we continue down the same path or we change something to get back on the surface again. I have been many times in this situation and to be honest I tried this method that you described, too. It really worked for me and I could get back on track, even better, with more positive energy and more fire within :) I would add only one thing to this and would like you to think about it: -- Everything is in our mind. Which is a very powerful tool. -- Cheers
Posted 9 years ago
Kevin
Sometimes you need to take a step back to make a move forward. Although I question if we should say 'step back', as you seem to be enjoying work again. And that's what matters. May I ask what keeps you motivated? To avoid falling back to a routine again? I find out I could stay motivated if I just stopped scheduling work and things.
Posted 9 years ago