Have you ever asked yourself "why do you do something if you already know it's the wrong way?" One of the biggest challenges we have in our lives is dealing with our inner voice that tells us to stop (when something could give long-term benefits) or to tell us to continue (when something has no future). So in this post I'm going to list the most important things that "help" us to self-destruct or destruct whatever we are doing.
The purpose of doing this list, is for you to identify if you are doing some of the topics listed below and to take actions to avoid them. So let us begin...
-Do you really like what you are doing?
This question could mean everything about the way of how you are living. If you don't like what you are doing, then why you still doing it? If you don't like something there's no need for you to do it; we are not slaves anymore (relatively XD). Some people do things because this is the only thing they can do, but they hate that.
Words without actions are nothing. Most of the time when the people say that they hate their jobs(could be a project o whatever they are doing), you can also notice that they are doing nothing to change that... So, how can be possible that if you hate your actual status you are not taking actions to change it. If you hate your job, just look for another, If you hate your carrear then think in something that you like most than that. You won't be 100% of efficientive if you don't like what you are doing and if you do it, you'll be an unhappy man.
-Procrastination
Don't let for tomorrow what can be done today... Thinking as a procrastinator that phrase could be something like: "Let for tomorrow what can done today" or "Why do it today if it can be done tomorrow".
This topic is one of the most commons; you can see people everywhere delaying things instead of doing it and maybe ourselves do that. Letting things pending because you have "enough" time is the most famous excuse to keep things in the backlog and leave away to the theater, so then you will keep doing that until the day before deadline, and then you will have to work all the night in the tasks that you left in the backlog because you had "enough" time. Maybe at the end you can deliver the tasks successfully, but let us think for one minute what could happened if your computer gets broken while you are working in the tasks pending to be delivered in the morning? or what could happened if there is an issue during the integrationg of your task with other team member's task?.
Procrastination is a bad practice for you and your team.
-Comfort Zone
Personally I think this is the hardest to notice for people. We try to avoid anxiety and we also feel afraid for what we don't know and the comfort zone gives us an armor against that ... The comfort zone makes us close to what we are familiar with, such as places, people and all that.
As simple as that, you can say that it is not bad, the problem associated with the comfort zone is that it does not allow you to improve yourself ... Returning to the first topic with the following question: "Do you really like what You are doing?" there are people who do not like what they do in their jobs, but they feel comfortable doing the same tasks every day because they are already familiar with the whole process, for this type of people who are in the comfort zone, the simple idea of starting to look for another job makes them feel anxious or insecure.
I think we all feel anxiety when we start something new, the only difference is if you decide to stay in the comfort zone or stay away to improve and reach your goals.
In conclusion, do what makes you happy, do not stay in your comfort zone and do not postpone things because tomorrow may be too late.
Top comments (8)
Great post, but I'd like to add a note here on evaluating yourself.
Changing behavior is hard. Especially as programmers, we tend to think we can reason our way out of any situation. So if you're procrastinating, or not leaving your comfort zone, you might get frustrated because you're trying really really hard to do the right thing and it's not working, leading you to blame yourself and think less of yourself.
If this happens, first of all, don't blame yourself. I don't mean you should blame someone or something else, but blaming in general is not useful, and just makes you feel bad. Second, look for help, go talk to a psychologist/therapist. They can help you get a better understanding of what's going on in your head, and overcome hurdles.
Regarding procrastination, I recently read a great series of articles on how procrastination is an emotion management problem rather than a time management problem, with a number of tips and techniques to overcome it. The article series is for medium subscribers, but you can read a limited number for free, and I think the first 2 are most interesting.
medium.com/s/the-complete-guide-to...
Yesp, I completely agree with you. There's no need for you to blame yourself ... Leaving the comfort zone or stop procrastinating things is not an easy task, it is a long process that we have to deal with. Having conversations with your friends about that also helps a lot, as they can see your effort to improve and can give you support if necessary.
Brb, I just gotta go look at myself in the mirror and reflect about my actions...
I couldn't feel more related to this post, great job Juan. Recently I've decided to become an android developer AND God knows Im trying my best, since I still have to work and deal with college projects. In past months I've looked for help, change my schedule (mom says I've lost it for waking up at 4:45am to study xD), and even bought books to learn about the topic, these are things I didn't figured myself doing before, but of course having space for myself from time to time and that's probably the hardest thing I've had to do recently, playing less videogame and study more. T _T kinda breaks me everytime but so far it's been really rewarding :)
Very good and 'true story' post. I totally agree. People afraid to take new actions, to do or try something new, just because of their fear of 'unknown'. We all fear of 'unknown', because that could be definition of the fear, but if we don't do anything to improve ourselves, how could we expect the reward or improvement in our lives.
Good post. But why is everybody calling it a comfort zone when there's nothing comfortable in it?
It is called like that, because this is how you feel when you are there... Even if it is not good for you or your career; for example when you leave your home for the first time to start living alone, that makes you feel uncertainty, because you are leaving your comfort zone, the place that you were familiar with.
This is true, a reality happening to me and I don't even realize. It's time I made a difference