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Ask HN: How to overcome strong feelings of worthlesness and inadequacy

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Re: Ask HN: How to overcome strong feelings of worthlesness and inadequacy

#41

Post by bitsoda »

dazedconfused wrote: post #21
d_r wrote: post #17

What you see on HN/TechCrunch/whatever has a strong "success bias." What this means is that you only get to see/read success stories. But there are also many people just like yourself who are just starting out. Many have failures under their belts. Even the people who are successful today have failed in the past! It sounds like you're practicing too much "theory" and reading, instead of creating. This will make anyon…

Thank you. Yes I don't really know the feeling of what is like to create something, this kills me. I am constantly disappointed by my code, it sucks, it's really bad and that also makes me lose motivation whenever I try to build something, for some reason failure is a permanent constant and the fear that I am going to fail anyway keeps me from actually getting trough building something to the end...

Just out of curiosity, were you a good student throughout your life, and told you were smart or bright? I ask because there was an interesting article on HN a week or two ago that showed a correlation between crippling fear of failure and self-doubt, and those with above-average IQs who were lauded for their academic prowess in school rather than their work ethic. Anyways, thanks for posting this question. I've found myself in this situation, and the advice shared here is rock solid.

Re: Ask HN: How to overcome strong feelings of worthlesness and inadequacy

#42

Post by nprs »

Most of your doubts and concerns were already answered by the wise old edw519 here: http://edweissman.com/53640595

Also please understand that self-pity is the worst use of your imagination.

I've been in your situation too and some of the things that helped me are: 1) Having a habit of exercising daily for 30 minutes. No compromise on this. This is a good antidote for depression. 2) A habit of getting up at 5 daily and doing the most important thing at that time. This habit alone can change your life and to cultivate this hard habit in a ridiculously easy manner please check this article: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/2006/04/how-to-get-up-right... 3) Having a Vision Board. I use text instead of images. They are more direct. I change it every week to keep it fresh and inspiring all the time. As a part of the morning ritual, I stare at the vision board for about 5 to 10 minutes and is also close to where I sleep. It gets in my way whenever I’m distracted and not working.

I'm an aspiring Hacker too - currently at the 'aspiring' level only though. I'm learning Ruby by straightaway trying to implement the algorithms found in my college book - Design and Analysis of Algorithm. My work is hardly inspiring. But I start my day with some satisfaction that I’m one step closer to becoming someone like ed519 even if it would take me years!

Remember that the 10000-hour-rule is BS. I realized that I can have fun 'while in the learning phase' and I could hit a wonderful break even before that. Just develop a couple of life-changing habits and you’ll do great.

Re: Ask HN: How to overcome strong feelings of worthlesness and inadequacy

#44

Post by robyates »

Move to Silicon Valley. Seriously. I started reading Hacker News last year as well and decided back in September to leave my job and move here. Definitely a big decision but I don't regret it. The demand for engineers here far exceeds the supply, so you can work at almost anywhere you like.

If you can't move, then attend a Startup Weekend near you (http://www.startupweekend.org/). It's a great way to meet startup oriented folks. I thought there was no startup community in the midwest. But at Startup Weekend in Des Moines, IA and Kansas City, MO I met well over 100 people. Then I found out about Startup Digest, Silicon Prairie News, etc. If there is no startup community, create one. Find everyone you know that might be interested, create a Facebook and Meetup group and organize some startup meetings. You never know who you'll meet.

Re: Ask HN: How to overcome strong feelings of worthlesness and inadequacy

#45

Post by teja1990 »

Start from the scratch, its ok.

Create simple html page for a login. Once you finish html , add some css to it . Try linking with a backend. Make sure you do these small things properly , not just thinking its too easy. The things like this will help you with confidence, once you finish up with your site , add more functionality to it . Use JavaScript , make your page dynamic. Try using javascript to just make small things. Once you are fully done with these go in for python/ruby.There are really good tutorials out there.Implement a small thing and post it here . I'm sure people will appreciate it. That day you'll get back your confidence , till then try lurking less into HN . Good Luck man, I'm sure you'll get back to us with your comeback story :)

Re: Ask HN: How to overcome strong feelings of worthlesness and inadequacy

#46

Post by beaumartinez »

dazedconfused wrote: post #8
larrykubin wrote: post #5

I'd probably spend less time on Hacker News. The percentage of programmers in the world who have actually finished SICP and CLRS is really small. I have copies of both sitting here next to me and have only finished a couple of sections. No reason to feel bad about it. Also, plenty of people have been out of work for over 2 months. I also recommend getting outdoors and doing things besides worrying about whether you a…

Thank you. Sadly HN has become like a drug to me... I have tried several times to ignore and stop coming back here but it has never worked and when I procrastinate I always end up coming back.

Edit your hosts file to block news.ycombinator.com—

    127.0.0.1 news.ycombinator.com
On Unix-like systems it's /etc/hosts

Re: Ask HN: How to overcome strong feelings of worthlesness and inadequacy

#47

Post by daskraken »

I can TOTALLY relate! I'm in pretty much the same position with a depression that grows stronger with every day I'm not doing something to break out of the situation. Making things worse is the fact that I've solely been doing Perl web development for the last 12(!) years at the same company. When I started web development in 99, it was all fun and play. I had the feeling I was at the forefront of technology and only few people could do what I did. Then I got stuck with Perl and had to see it going out of fashion (nevertheless, I seriously still think it's a wonderful language that gets the job done and with the Modern Perl tools available in a very maintainable way as well, but I digress). Years passed, and here I am. A Perl developer in a country where Perl has completely vanished off the surface. I'd never go so far as to call myself a Perl expert either. Neither have I written a couple of frameworks or libraries (like the pros you mention) nor have I poked around in the internals of the interpreter. I'm just a web guy, who is equally good at front- and backend development, but neither a rockstar in one of them. Jack of all trades, master of none fits my person best. Once sought-after in the internet hay days, nowadays replaced by an army of experts and specialists.

I'm thinking about leaving development as well, but what are the alternatives? Going into management? I don't have the experience to apply for such a position at another company and I don't see this happening at my current employer because we're rather small. Similar to you, I lost my motivation over the years and find it hard to justify learning new stuff (like Ruby, Rails, Python, node.js, maybe Cocoa development, etc.) because it'll go out of fashion soon again anyway and takes me considerably more time to digest than those prodigy developers the internet seems to be full of. But maybe, things aren't like they appear. What's the percentage of rockstar developers among all developers? It's most certainly not close to 90% as the internet and all the cool blogs make us think ...

Sorry I couldn't be of more help, just wanted to let you know that there are others out there in pretty much the same situation. All the best!

Re: Ask HN: How to overcome strong feelings of worthlesness and inadequacy

#48

Post by four »

I'm sorry to hear that you feel so crumby.

In coming to us, asking for help with your problem, you demonstrate strength, in spite of feeling badly.

Since you mentioned thinking of suicide, I must strongly recommend you talk to a mental health professional. If you don't already have an appointment, tell us your city and we'll come up with a resource for finding one in your area. These can narrowly constrain your opportunities. If we know, we can perhaps offer more realistic help.

Do you have: money? car? housing? physical disabilities? Legal problems? (Of course, you're not required or compelled to share any personal details with us.)

Once all that is addressed: You need to focus on success in the place of focusing on failure. You need to see that you can accomplish, yourself, a goal.

Not knowing anything about you and your life, I recommend: Goal: walk for an hour every day - in any number of shorter walks, if you'd like or have to.

Steps:

Preparation: P1. Cancel broadband service at home. P2. Get a small, blank notebook as a daily log.

Daily actions: D1. Go for a walk. Out the door, or a bus or car ride away. Mall, abandoned train tracks, park, city streets, airport, your driveway - doesn't matter particularly. D2. Immediately after your walk, log your walk: date and time. D3. Shower, shave, dress neatly. No excuses on this one. D4. Go to a busy place for an hour. Bring pad and pen. No phone or computer allowed. D5. Immediately after your visit there, log it: date, time and place.

Follow-up: F1. Repeat this everyday this week. F2. Next Monday, check back with one/all of us.

Hint: The goal is accomplishing the action, not having a feeling ("Happy!" "Fulfilled").

I look forward to hearing from you.

Re: Ask HN: How to overcome strong feelings of worthlesness and inadequacy

#49

Post by dholowiski »

ebiester wrote: post #36

First, there is nothing to be ashamed about for being an enterprise programmer. So, you've been working as an assembler. Now is the time to look at the tools themselves. First, go back and review the basics of web programming. https://code.google.com/edu/submissions/html-css-javascript/... is a good start. It is probably below your level, but do it anyway. Get some confidence. :) Do the same with a decent book on you…

Good call on no copy and paste. I'm in constant learning mode and the difference between copying and pasting code, and typing in code, even if it's code that someone else has written, is huge. Same goes for reading a programming book vs reading and doing all the examples. Sometimes I think that when you program you're thinking with your fingers or your fingers are an extension of your brain. Exercise them!

Also, thanks for the link to google code university - it's new to me.

Re: Ask HN: How to overcome strong feelings of worthlesness and inadequacy

#50

Post by adaptives »

I know it may not be much consolation, but many people go through such phases at least once (or even more) in their life.

Think of it as a phase, which will leave you more skilled and happy when it's done.

When passing through a phase of feeling worthless, it is common to become inundated with things and not being able to take tasks to completion. The trick is to set small achievable goals. Make goals that will take no more than a couple of hours to couple of days to accomplish (start small if you can). Every time you complete something, cross it off your list. Every time you cross an item, it will give you a feeling of accomplishment and confidence.

Try using the Pomodoro technique to stay focused. It has helped a lot of people (myself included), and it may help you too.

I have a website for peer based learning of various computer science topics. I will be glad if it helps you in any way. You can check it out at http://diycomputerscience.com/

Remember that such phases often happen to bring about growth, and you will come out of this better off.

Take care.

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