What do you do when
[2024-03-17 11:30:55 PM] : What do you do when your personal interests and passions have diverged a lot from your work? Do you change your work, or do you try to re-ignite the passion in your work? I guess there’s no clear answer, but if anyone has experienced a similar feeling, would love to hear how you’ve dealt with it.
My situation: I still like programming and I’m good at it, but it’s not my passion anymore as it used to be. I haven’t worked as a programmer ever since I started teaching programming. In the meanwhile, my interests have shifted towards physical & mental health, nutrition, self-development, and various sports. What I do at work and what I do in life are very detached and this misalignment in personal and business interests makes it hard for me to show up at work.
1 Reply
[2024-03-18 12:46:08 PM] : Yup, I've been there. I'm trying to figure some of this out myself. Here are things that have worked for me:
[2024-03-18 03:08:29 PM] : Will Barrett was there a list that you didn't press "send" on? :smile:
[2024-03-18 03:11:46 PM] : Yup, sure was. I got yanked into an unexpected (and long) meeting. Here it is:
1. Look for overlap - in your case, there are a lot of health apps that need programming, lots of nutrition apps, medical software, etc...maybe you want to be in the game instead of teaching the game?
2. View work as, at least sometimes, a means to an end. Does work give you the $$ you need to do the things you really want to do?
[2024-03-18 03:16:19 PM] : 3. Start a business around the passion, see if it goes somewhere. I'm starting a cello studio right now, because I'm a classically trained cellist and I'm tired of not having music in my life. It's easier to make the time for it if I'm getting paid.
4. Try to redevelop the passion. I really enjoy programming and leading software teams, except for a few parts that can be really terrible. I find ways to take in the good parts, even when the bad parts are happening.
5. If I'm really miserable for too long as a result of misalignment, therapy can be helpful. Not everyone needs therapy for everything, but I went through a truly terrible work situation in the latter half of last year, and the only way I came out the other side was through therapy.
6. Try to create a plan for a better life, and figure out small steps you can take towards the goal (umm...stacking the bricks said another way?) then make small progress in that direction. It can make the current situation feel more manageable, and I find it gives me hope for the future.
[2024-03-18 03:17:17 PM] : BUT!!!! I don't have this figured out. Right now I'm running a struggling consulting company and trying to figure out what I want to do about that (and what I want to do when I grow up) so also remember that no one has everything figured out, and feeling disconnected and confused about life is pretty much part of the course. There's no straight line or perfect balance out there, just the search for it.
[2024-03-19 04:35:17 AM] : Thanks for sharing Will! Appreciate it. I’ve been thinking about #1, but the reverse: physical/mental health for devs.
I def prefer to be in the game. I like teaching but it’s not the same as doing the actual thing. And I find with entrepreneurship it’s a lot about serving others which moves the focus away from your own experience to other’s needs and wants. I struggle with that. In an ideal world I’d just do my own thing and people would pay me to watch/observe/learn. I’d live my life, challenge myself, experiment and explore, and my life journey would inspire others.
I value freedom, autonomy and building my own thing so entrepreneurship seems the way to go. When I think about employment… ugh.
#2 is very hard to grasp. The whole point of doing my own thing is doing something I love. I’d hate living a life that’s doing something I don’t like, even if it’s only 30% so I can enjoy the remaining 70%.
I feel very stuck right now and having difficulty moving forward. I’m scheduling a few calls with friends that will maybe help think through the problem.
I’m thinking back at how I started learning programming 8y ago as result of procrastinating for writing my economics thesis. 6months later I got a job as a software engineer in Stockholm and I packed my bags and left. The whole career switch seemed so easy, natural and smooth. Starting a company/entrepreneurship hasn’t been like that and I’m trying to figure out why was it so easy back then to step up on the next ladder in life, and why it’s so hard now
[2024-03-20 02:44:52 PM] : great conversation here, and lots of great notes from Will Barrett
[2024-03-20 03:00:41 PM] : > In an ideal world I’d just do my own thing and people would pay me to watch/observe/learn. I’d live my life, challenge myself, experiment and explore, and my life journey would inspire others.
respectfully...this isn't just an 'ideal world' sort of thing, it's pure fantasy. E.g. almost every full time content creator spends a large % of their time doing things other than creating content.
one of the big differences between entrepreneurship and most job/career transitions is that in a job, you get to outsource everything except for the task you're hired for to your employer for the cost of...them owning most of the control. doing you own thing, you get to control everything, but that means you assume all of the additional responsibilities that employers make invisible!
that said, I fully agree with Will Barrett's suggestion that finding overlaps between the audiences you belong to, and this sounds like something worth exploring:
I’ve been thinking about #1, but the reverse: physical/mental health for devs.My only word of caution here is that health industry stuff is often viewed more like a consumer purchase vs a "business" purchase, unless you're very intentional about tying it to professional development. Which could be possible, if you can find those themes on safari! The other recommendation that comes to mind is the quote from The Tiny MBA: "Passion isn't an input for success, it's an output." In my experience, a lot of time when people "fall out of passion" for something, they didn't really know where the passion came from in the first place. It's rarely for the thing itself, but the learning process, a sense of progress, a sense of agency/control/creativity, stuff like that. And worse, when they turn a passion into work, it accelerates the loss of passion. Sometimes because it starts feeling like an obligation, other times because they stop doing whatever gave them the feeling of "passion" in the first place. Sounds like you're not programming anymore. What if you had a reason to learn a new langauge or tool or solve a new problem with those programming skills again? sounds like you're still unpacking this, so I'm intentionally not giving a "1-2-3" answer here. Just trying to offer some alternative perspectives to help you triangulate your next steps. And it's great that you're talking to friends and colleagues about this. Therapy might help too! My #1 advice is that whatever you choose, don't wait for a perfect option to get back into action. Change follows action.