Real talk: if you haven't kept yourself accountable for 6 years, you probably won't now.
I say quit your job, but don't have a plan; figure things out afterward. Catapulting yourself out of your comfort zone is the best way to get to know what you really want to do, and force yourself to care about what it is you want to do. Nobody here can tell you what that is.
It sounds like you need to go back to basics. Throw out your current goals and assumptions. Think through and write down the things you value the most. Based on your values, think through what you want out of your life. Then, compare/contrast with where you are today. Once you have a good picture of this, you need to take a 10-year view of how you are going to get from where you are now to where you want to be. Don't do anything less than 10 years since you'll just want to hurry things up and inherently fail.
Chances are, you already know what you don't like about your current circumstances, but you just don't have the courage (yet) to face it. The exercise above will help you -- it helped me. I'm quitting my day job this Friday to focus on what I love doing.
My gut is telling me to quit my job and work for my products.
The best advice I ever got from my mentor: "Listen to your gut!" Passing it on...
I have enough savings to survive for five years.
What?!? Are you fucking crazy?!? What are you waiting for?!?
My biggest fears are: - To not stick to a schedule/routine once I am solo.
How will you know until you try? More to the point: how will you know how important "sticking to a schedule/routine" is until you try? (Probably not nearly as much as you think.)
- People's and family opinion.
Fuck. That. Shit. The first thing anyone must do when embarking on a new journey is to focus on the issues and ignore the pointless details. I can't imagine anything more pointless than "people's and family opinion".
- Failing and losing motivation.
Why lump these 2 together? In my experience, failing is the best way to learn and learning is the best way to get more motivation.
Should I quit my job and work on my stuff or search for another position that would give more motivation?
YES! YES! YES! Do something, anything different! The worst thing you can do at this point in you life is stay the course. You'll just get older and more bitter. And posting the same thing on hacker news 2 years from now.
You can recapture money. You can recapture relationships. You can recapture your health. You can recapture almost anything, except for time.
Please don't make the same mistake I made by getting started in your 40's. Because you were too timid and pissed away too much of your life on what you know is the wrong thing.
I've responded to many similar questions over the years here on hn, but yours may be the clearest of them all: You already know what you must do but came here for confirmation. Now you have it. Take the next right step for yourself and please, keep us posted.
All, Hear me out. The first thing you need to overcome is not your wallet, or your options, timing or any other thing. It is -- your mind.
If you experience this level of pressure, quit. And then start looking. Do not be influenced that your boss is the boss of your life or your career for that matter.
If you've got a family to take care of, quickly join a consulting firm. Worst case you'll have to travel some, but it buys you some mental time to start looking for another job. And it sure beats Hell. People WILL tell you to not quit but they won't know how much pressure your in. They don't need to know. Just quit and find a better place. Garden, paint, chill with your espresso, take up that book you never read, or that new lang you never used. Do something positive.
You hold the power to fix this. Quit, and find a new Job. Do it for yourself, do it for your family, for your friends, do it for open source communities that you contribute to.
There is always a way out, and don't let anyone make you think that the only way out is a tiny little door -- to hell. Because what they don't tell you is that the door is fake. Your already in hell.
Way to draw a detailed scenario to which, I unfortunately have no advise for. Having said that, it resonates with a lot of what I hear in my personal circles.
In your situation, I would talk to my wife. Assure her that my professional life deserves a change and after which, follow through very carefully. First, find out what it is I need to be happy. Is it money, distance to work, workplace dynamic or maybe my own business. Itemising the collective of what works for me, will give me a sense of following up with my goals. I can attack them one at a time. I don't want to feel pressured to change based on any findings, but I don't want to shelve them away as well. It's kind of like making a pact with myself about a life-changing, 180 deg turnaround, and then getting a sandwich,- and forgetting about it.
Once I have an idea of what and where I want to be, I'd start by being honest with myself: can I pull it off. Baby step into it by setting aside minimal amount of daily time to find out how I'll get it all done. For example, if my path leads me to making my first mobile game, I'll go to the book store. Research what kids games are easy to port and estimate my time. "Tic tac toe" for instance would be a good first candidate. Do a shitty, but honest effort to get something done. Rinse and repeat, but improve a bit with every iteration. I would attempt to join online groups, find related groups on G+, FB, etc. If I find myself loosing interest, re-evaluate if I really can keep up with the expectations.
And then there's my current albeit hypothetical job. If above makes me happy enough, why quit. If you still loathe it, reapply your spent time to looking for new job and call a meeting for tomorrow at 8am with your boss.
Find out what you REALLY want. Find your motives. Find the underlying essential motivation. That's much deeper than coding or not handling crap. Those are superficial symptoms, not what makes you move.
Find a good professional coach that can help you with finding this out. Pay money for it. You probably can spend several thousands $$$ on this. Not that it needs to be that expensive, but $1000-$2000 is easily spent.
If you quit this good paying job, while it may actually have the opportunity to bring you to your dream job, it's worth staying there long enough to get your things together.
Yes quit. But life is not binary. I personally slip into a schedule of 4am sleep and noon wakes when I'm not obligated to be anywhere. I'm 27 and it's a struggle to find my place in the world. However, I tried to ride out a similar situation until I found a different job, only to be fired when things went too downhill for a variety of reasons. Your situation sounds like my nightmare, but many peoples dream, what you decide can't be wrong, and if you have any resilience in this world then you'll figure it out. I highly recommend fucking around a bit—perhaps as the Nomad you decry. It's fun, and when you haven't had fun in a while, it's awakening. It's a bigger and more damning risk imo—if you have savings—to stay put and not change things up. I think it's better to work hard and suffer in a positive way to find something that brings you and others value—and you positive mental health state—than to suffer in a negative way for no discernible positive outcome other than money. My overall recommendation: Don't trade your life for money and perceived safety. Try something else and let your damn hair down. True hippies btw are awful, nomads just like to explore and basically just tend to get out of stagnant corporate grinds.
I went through this; I took an entire year and change off. After a prolonged period of relationship and work stress, I simply had to step away. Any time I tried to do any sort of work, I'd seize, freeze-up, and become filled with an overwhelming sense of dread and hatred. So I did nothing for a very long time. Then, when I tried again, it was as you describe. I eventually got another job, one I enjoy, as money became a problem, and it took a few weeks, but eventually got into the swing of things again. I still struggle sometimes, but I take frequent single days off, and if I find myself dreading again or worrying about my performance, I remind myself that I can simply quit; it's a job, money doesn't have a strong causal relationship with happiness, and my needs are basic. The same goes for relationships. Unless either are giving you what you're putting in, quit. If you can't quit now, plan the exit. My goal now is to not get to where I was.
You may be at a local maximum of freedom to quit your job and work on your stuff, at least with respect to economic constraints.
Concerns about others' opinions and about your ability to persevere solo are internal constraints.
To the former, does your employer have a leave of absence policy? Could you take a year leave to try your own thing, with the ability to return if now isn't the time?
To the latter - breaking away from excessive conformity to others' opinions is a good thing, IMHO, and if all you accomplish in this exercise is that, it's net positive.
Sticking to a schedule: find a mentor, advisor, somebody to check in with you weekly and review projected work vs. actual results. This will help you stay on task and find workarounds when you get stuck.
It seems like you're well positioned to strike out on a different path. Best of luck to you.
Quitting your job and striking out alone has to be the kind of decision that comes from passion. Yes, you have to be ready technically and financially. You'll need a plan for food, shelter, the internet, and the support from your friends and family.
But all that's got to play second fiddle, a distant background, to that burning need to create. The desire to meld a future in your own hands, that consuming passion that blots out all the worries of consequences and obliterates apprehension with just the pure possibility of what could be made.
Don't get me wrong, have a plan. But if you're not driven mad by the incessant need to let the fruits of your mind explode out of your fingertips, if thoughts of your future, your career, what ifs, and what nots are still around, rotting at the foundation of your desires, then you're just not ready.
You will need that passion to survive on your own. It will be difficult. You'll have tough times, worries from your family, and worries from yourself. The self doubt can at times be a terrible burden, but the demon in your mind demands to be satisfied, and it will have it's way. You must hand yourself over to it and it will drag you to success. But only if you can give yourself fully.
In short, you don't take time off to do something because it will be a good move for your next paying job. You take time off to give yourself over to your passions. You've only held a paying job this long so you can become that junkie and still live.
(It's how I get by)
Oh, and if you fail, the experience will only make you stronger.
Based on your other post, you should have quit. You weren't happy and were subjected to slave labor. Forcefully applying more time at a keyboard doesn't make you a more productive programmer. In fact, it makes you sloppy. Despite what "everyone" thinks, they're wrong. They're wrong because they're not you. They're wrong because they weren't there. They're wrong because they probably couldn't even do what you were doing to begin with. They're just plain wrong on every level.
At 20 you're still trying to define yourself so social approval matter but these are the experiences in your life that cause you to retreat into your own mental cave to carve out and define who you've always been and exactly who you'll become.
You don't know what you need to know to be a successful freelancer. That's obvious by the fact that you went broke. Find other freelancers and ask them for their advice. Go back to school and get your high school degree. Learn about business and marketing. Take on a job, it doesn't have to pay great.
In short find yourself. Find what works. You're young and you haven't earned your freedom. Freedom comes with a price. Go pay the price for your freedom or sell your freedom for a price. The choice is yours, and it is a choice.
Regarding suicide. I've felt like that more times than I can count. Don't do it. It always turned out that suicidal thoughts were always huge indications that the idea of who I am needed to die. Meaning it was time for a massive change. Look for what you'd like to change about yourself and your life.
And...for christ's sake find some new friends! Preferably friends with a set of balls who aren't such sheep and are willing to take chances in life.
I've been looking into dropping out of my tech job specifically to start a consulting practice helping individual and teams through such things, because there are some common threads that everyone seems to struggle with. You said some of them yourself - areas out of your control, responsibility without authority, self-identity wrapped up in work. I hear those three all the time.
So you are not alone.
You are on the right track with how to cope - identify the problems and take some vacation time. The next step would be to discuss the problems with your boss - tell them what you need, and what you want. Tell them you aren't OK where things stand right now. Draw some boundaries about what is or is not OK in your work environment.
Also take some time to think about what areas of your work are truly your responsibility. Do people count on you because it is your job description to be the linchpin holding your team together? Or do they count on you because they know you can be counted on, without that actually being your role? I typically hear from people in the latter case - and when you bring it up with your boss, tell them that something needs to change - if you are the key person, your job title and compensation need to match that responsibility. You also need the autonomy to control everything you will be held accountable for. If they do not grant you those things, then you should step back and tell people to count on someone else, because they aren't giving you the tools you need to fulfill that role. Push the pressure you feel uphill to your boss, who is truly accountable for your team.
Those conversations can be tough. But in a situation like your where you don't hate the job, you just hate how it makes you feel, your employer wants the same thing you do (usually) - to make it a place where you want to work. Help them get you to that place by talking to them. Odds are, you'll work something out. If not, it is time to look for new work, but cross that bridge only if and when you come to it... for starters, just get the conversations going. After all, you have nothing to lose - if you don't fix this, you'll quit at some point anyway when the mental strain grows too much. So give them a chance to help you fix your job.
Stop beating yourself up and start working as you have wished. Work when it is time to work but don't forget to live. You will never get that time back but are still young.
Don't be afraid to fail. Push ahead and you'll see failure is temporary.
It's either some kind of career change or identifying your weak spots and working on them.
It's impossible to tell whether you're actually that bad or just being extremely hard on yourself.
You don't have to be the best at what you do to make a living you know. Are you getting by? Can you keep a job for more than a year?
Yeah, you are in a rut. If you keep doing what you're doing, you'll stay there. You'll need to be honest with yourself about how much change you're willing to take on and at what pace. Or, you could just stay in your comfortable rut.
You want to switch jobs? You'll need to explain yourself and demonstrate some basic coding and thinking abilities to complete strangers. This sucks if you're all stressed out. Don't go banging your stressed-out head against leetcode trying to jump ship. Just try to improve your life right now. Start making tiny changes and decisions that get you ahead. You'll feel much better, and it'll put you in a better position to move on.
First thing I'd recommend is to get away from work. Like... stop spending time on work.
- Start being more efficient; get the stuff done quicker.
- Give yourself more time when estimating.
- Explain the work breakdown in order to raise questions about priority and scope. Work on the highest priority stuff; don't spend time on the other stuff.
- Engage with others. Ask for help. Identify people who can be a resource. E.g. if given 3 days to do task X, will you grind through it (higher stress) over 3 days, or will you schedule some time with someone you have a good relationship with who is better at it and can accelerate getting task X done (lower stress)?
Part of a manager's job is to literally help you do the above things. Use your manager to discuss these things.
The bad news is that you've already shown to everyone you work with that you're a workaholic. So you're gonna have to get creative in how you apply this. But you can do it, as long as you keep your performance up.
Next thing I'd recommend after being able to 1) step back from work 2) while still performing... is to get into other things for fun. You need to tap back into the good stuff. The stuff you enjoy and are interested in. Just spend time on that. Not what other people think is cool. Not for popularity (yeah, you mentioned those libraries on GitHub). But what you want to do. It could improve your life a lot. Just do what you want to do.
First, don’t quit until your plan is at least validated by yourself and your household. If you are sincere about your reasons then you will get encouragement to make the change with stability as job 1. I know people who take the exit before having the landing and while it works for them it is hard on the people that love them who favor stability. It’s all very reasonable I’m the big picture.
Another option is to start some mental health counseling and get some tools to disconnect emotionally from work, then begin to renegotiate work conditions. Having a note from a professional helps to make your case you are doing your job but can obtain more flexibility for work-life-balance and overall health. This sets a good baseline for the next 20 years of your working career!
Personally I love a fresh start. I occasionally re arrange my furniture just for change. It also is a chance to go into a negotiation with a good list of real priorities that may have been different 10 years ago. Mine sure were. In the US in my field, the tone has changed and they want happy healthy vaccinated employees, and are willing to change their structure (more remote, 40 hours ‘whenever it works and gets it done and the team is good’) and the only way to get it is hit the market as a free agent. The last place I did a gig willingly underpaid me $10k in salary I have realized, and I’m angry at them for it but aiming for $20k more now and will likely get it.
That's great until the economy changes and you have to start competing again.
I had a slack job for my mid career when I should have been busting my ass and positioning myself for my later career. I wasted tons of time and regret it. You may have ADHD. You may just be lacking self discipline. I don't know. You should get your shit together now when you have the option and not wait for life circumstances to demand it.
It's not about what you owe the company. It's about what you owe yourself.
Set a deadline - 6 or 12 months. Cheer yourself up by using that time to plan carefully some of your desired activities. Save as much money as you can during that year.
Then quit.
It will take three months at least before you find your balance again. At least, that's how it was for me after my company closed and sent us all away with nice severence packages. One of my colleagues literally stepped into a nicely paying contract gig the following Monday. I took a month which turned into three which turned into six. I did the cliché thing and went to Bali. And still my mind was so focused on the rat race and how to live by its rules that I almost forgot to enjoy my time.
I did some contract stuff, did some nice travel, and then got a "real job". Now, 1.5 years later, I hate almost every day. I have money again, and safety, and a comfy house with a big yard (great fortune to be stuck here during COVID compared to a flat in Amsterdam). But knowing I have to get up each day and do nearly pointless tasks just to keep the ship moving in the right direction has been making me question the point of existence. That questioning can easily reach a point of danger, because ultimately you will reason that there is no point (and there isn't...); so you should be doing something that makes you happy or that you find passion in.
Tomorrow I quit. I worked out a contract where I have total say in how the tech stuff is built, and I have total flexibility in location and nearly total flexibility in hours of the day.
Given your skills, if you wish to leverage your unique and pretty valuable talents, you should be getting involved (networking) with entrepreneurial finance people. One of my other colleagues was a quant, and now he's investing and managing investment for a few clients. It took him about 5 years, but now I believe he has surpassed his income level from when we were at a professional finance shop. He travels for work and pleasure, and he mostly keep hours of his choosing.
There are really so many things you could probably do... you just need to start getting to know people and seeing which opportunities present themselves.
I say quit your job, but don't have a plan; figure things out afterward. Catapulting yourself out of your comfort zone is the best way to get to know what you really want to do, and force yourself to care about what it is you want to do. Nobody here can tell you what that is.
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