What's WRONG With This Software Engineer's MOTIVATION?

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Hey folks, I'm just headed to the office here. It's going to be apparently 50 minutes, which is nuts. Um, and I think Google now tells me my estimated total cost, which is $6 to get to work today. Um, which isn't really bad or anything. Just uh I do the comparison to ad revenue per video and cost drive to work uh excluding gas too. Okay. Uh going to experienced devs. This one's uh called how to be motivated to work. They say from the past six to eight months, I believe my drive to work has diminished a lot. It's kind of interesting when people say things like this next part. I either procrastinate a lot or take too many leaves. Like I don't think a lot of people like admit stuff like this. So it's good observation, good reflection. Every day I don't have any motivation to start my work.

I thought it was a project I'm working on. So took an uh took an internal mobility. If you're not familiar with that, you're able to like try working on different teams or different projects across teams or orgs. So, you're still doing work, but it can give you an opportunity to be exposed to different things. Um, with the new time I lost interest at my with the new time I lost interest at my job, I'm not able to pinpoint any particular issue. Um, they're kind of saying, is it I'm at the same place for too long. Like they're thinking about quitting, kind of starting fresh. Um, so kind of an interesting one to talk through and I had a suspicion and uh kind of skim the comments and uh I think probably most people are on the same page for this one. Um, give me one second.

I'm going to have to turn here. my neighbors, my lovely neighbors. Um, I think there's probably three families, maybe even up to four that live in the house that's next to me. Um, not my business, but there's a lot of people that live in that house. Um, and seemingly like multiple like individual family. I think they're all like one big family, but I think there's like the kids have their spouses living there and stuff. It's interesting. Um, again, not the point. The point is that they have so many vehicles that they park them down this street that I'm just turning on to. They park them in their driveway. They park them on the other side of the road from my house and they park them in front of their house and my house. There are so many vehicles. Um, sometimes they park their vehicles where our trash Oh.

Oh, it's Wednesday. Good. Um that's tomorrow morning that I have to do that. Um they'll park their cars like where our trash and recycling has to go out on the road. Uh and you know it's uh they can park wherever they want like legally uh on the street there, right? But it's it's a pain in the ass like um it it feels like Yeah, they just they have far too many vehicles for one house. like where we live. It's just different if you have like more space. But nothing illegal about it, just a total pain in the ass. Um and then turning onto this street because they have like work trucks. I can't I can't see. Um my wife like will constantly complain about it because we'll go to pull out onto the street and you can't see cars coming because their trucks line the street we can't see.

Anyway, uh if you want questions answered, leave them below in the comments. Uh otherwise you can send a message to dev leader on social media. That is uh my social media handle on basically every platform. Otherwise on LinkedIn it's just Nick Cosantino. It's a open premium profile so you should be able to message me. I think I get messages from nonconnections and that's fine. And uh yeah if uh if you send them in uh that way then you'll be kept anonymous and um you can write more detail if you want. Otherwise, it's publicly in the comments and just don't write anything online that you're gonna regret kind of thing. Um, but otherwise, yeah, if it's sent to me, like I will keep you anonymous. I'm not going to like out people. I've had people write really detailed things about kind of challenges they're going through and helps me give you what I would feel like is a better answer.

I'm not saying I have all the answers, but at least uh I can understand where you're coming from more clearly. Okay, so spoiler alert. I think that what this person is describing is what we call burnout. Um, and I I think that's the case primarily because um they're they're talking about what seems to be like a systematic kind of challenge, right? They can't really pinpoint why they're lacking motivation. uh the symptoms symptoms they describe are very much like kind of like a burnout type of thing but it's not the project right they try different projects they've even said like I like the people I work with I like solving problems so um it's not people related seemingly it's not the projects in particular um it seems like you know they conceptually they they enjoy the space that they're in but Um what what they're observing though is like the uh the motivation or the drive or the joy is gone.

Okay. And some folks like have not gone through burnout and that's okay. Um it's uh I I'll share this with you briefly. Um it's not I always end up drawing a comparison uh between burnout and depression. um I recognize they're not the same thing, but I think there is a lot of overlap and um so things like depression um and that sort of thing like run in my family and sorry I have to turn here and there's a traffic cop to to direct. Um and I can recall like my sister's gone through depression and stuff. She's a year older than me. uh you know different points in her life. Um I I never like went to go get diagnosed with depression or anything like that. Um but I think that for I remember when she was going through that I was like oh it's like we're teenagers, whatever, right?

Like it's just teenager things. I don't know. Um and I remember my mom discussing like how she had depression and stuff at various points. Um, and I I can remember this conversation with her and I'm like, I I couldn't really comprehend depression because I remember saying to her like, I just don't understand because like like don't you have things that like you get excited about, right? Like when you're feeling like, hey, I'm depressed or I'm sad or whatever. I'm like I like for example, my mother loves to garden. She has beautiful gardens at her house. Always did growing up. Um, you know, 11 acres of property and like just she's an amazing gardener. And I just remember thinking and saying to her like, you know, for gardens, for example, like you love gardening, like could you not just, you know, go to one of your gardens and spend time there and uh and improve or I don't know all the the gardening details, right?

but like either weeding it, going to change out the the the layout of the of the flowers and stuff that she's planted, like uh splitting flowers, all all sorts of things. Like you enjoy doing that. Like if you're feeling sad about something or like or you're not excited about things, like why don't you just go do one of those things you love? Like I don't get it. And um it it's kind of funny, especially if you've gone through burnout or whatever. You're like, well, duh. like that's a really stupid thing to say. And I remember her laughing about it and she's like, you don't get it yet. And she's right. I didn't get it yet. But like logically I was like, if you're not feeling excited about something, like go try spend some time on something that you're excited about. Like why wouldn't you? The the fundamental flaw with that reasoning is that the things that actually get you excited and motivated no longer do.

In fact, like nothing does. And that's that's the challenge, right? because you have these things that you um usually enjoy or usually motivate you and they just do not. And trying new things is certainly not a thing you're going to want to try doing because you have no motivation to do so. And anything you do if you're like oh like for me it's like oh like maybe I'll play a video game, maybe I'll go try uh exploring a new little side project just to poke around and be curious. those things that normally are very exciting or um fun or get my curiosity going, whatever it happens to be, some type of motivation or engagement, they just don't do it. So, it starts to feel like you have no options. And then, in my opinion, that creates a bit more of like a vicious cycle because you start to shut down more and more, right?

you're like, "Well, video games aren't doing it. I'm not going to play video games." Or working on my side, like my side projects, whether that's like building a little video game or uh for me, like I spend time building brand ghost now. Um what like you know, doing different things for content creation. Just like nope, don't like don't want to do any of those things because I might spend some time on them and I'm like, doesn't feel like it's doing anything for me. and you just start to shut down. So, you stop doing more things and then it doesn't make the sort of like that depressive state any better. Um, so it's tricky, right? And I'm not a psychologist. I'm not going to pretend like I have answers um at that sort of level for how to like navigate that kind of stuff. So, it is tricky.

Oh, man. Sorry. There's a there's a really dumb spot for a bus stop. It's like the left you turn left at the intersection and there's two turn lanes. If you're in the right lane, you end up close to the the sidewalk and there's a bus stop right there and there's like a double length bus that stops there. So, you go to turn left and then and then you can't complete the turn. Um, which it's kind of funny cuz like yeah, if you're at the front of the line, like you should recognize that, but um you might see the bus and then you're like, cool. Like, I'm going to get behind the bus and then it stops right away. And then in that case, we just had a couple of cars kind of get stuck. So, I had to go around. Anyway, the um I the situation that I think this person's experiencing is burnout.

And I was talking about depression there because I think that there's a lot of similarity in terms of like you don't have motivation for things, you don't have drive for things, nothing's really engaging. Um that's why this person is procrastinating more. That's why they're not excited to do work, right? that's why switching to a new project isn't really doing it for them. Um, there's lots of different strategies that you can go read about online for for navigating burnout. Um, my my number one thing that I try to get people to start with is like just acknowledging that that's what it is. So, if you have my opinion, if you have awareness about burnout, um, sorry, I'm getting work messages like that don't seem relevant. Um, if you have awareness about burnout, especially as it's creeping up, then you can at least start to consider if things need to change.

Every video I've made about burnout or anytime I've written about burnout, I always say my number one recommendation is to try and focus on signs of burnout. It doesn't mean like once you recognize it, you can snap your fingers and say be gone burnout like you shall not pass, right? It doesn't it doesn't just work that way. But my opinion is that if you don't have awareness of it, then then you can't do anything. Then it goes on for longer periods of time and things get worse. At least if you have awareness, you can start to consider what actions might be available for you. Right? So that's why I'm saying like awareness is key because if you recognize it, you can start or start researching, start doing something. But if you don't have awareness, you might have months go by, you might have years go by and it's not like it's getting better magically along the way generally, right?

Unless something changes dramatically. So number one thing I recommend is burnout. So, even if the only or sorry, number one thing I recommend is awareness of burnout. Sorry, my brain is apparently not working. Um, so for this person on this Reddit thread, if the only thing that they take away from posting on that Reddit thread is like, "Hey man, you probably are going through burnout." Like I think that that's, you know, that's a it's a good start because if they're trying to do these other things like, oh, I I think it's just that I don't have interest in this project, like you're you're trying to solve probably the wrong issues. Now, probably the next question that people will have as they're hearing that is like, okay, well, what's causing the burnout, right? like you have awareness, great, but like if we want to go fix it, what's actually causing it?

And this can be very different for many people, right? Um again, if you've watched my other videos on burnout, I tried to explain that this stuff can look very different, but um it's it's just the reality, right? Like I have explained before that from my personal experience I've been able to um like sort of have my workload be ridiculously high, right? But no one forcing me to do it, right? So I don't have that pressure. It's like, "Hey, you better get this done." So the amount of work wasn't really the issue. I'm sure it didn't. Let Let me rephrase. I'm sure it didn't help. I'm sure it didn't make things good, but I don't think that was the root cause of when I first experienced burnout. That was a root cause because I was doing like for years I was able to do it and still like finding joy in what I was doing.

Um, so not just the amount of work. Um, I've had more recent burnout where I've explained that yes, the workload was very high, maybe not even as high as what I've done historically, but um, the motivation behind that work or like the purpose behind it or the things that have to get done, the amount of autonomy, like all these different factors. I'm like they weren't there and basically not quite like instantly but like within a couple of weeks I was like nope like I am burnt out badly right and if you've watched my videos over the past few months you'll you'll hear me talk about it depends how many you watch right but you'll hear me talk about it you'll probably see it right I'm still burnt out right now I have my um sort of for this big project that I'm on. I have the final readout for that to complete it on Monday and it was supposed to be a month ago.

We needed to extend just logistically for the presentation which caused it to move out a full month. Um, so yes, it's been lighter over the past month, which is great, but it's not done. And because it's a project I'm leading, like it's wrapping up for other people, but it's not done for me yet. So, um, sort of that that's remained sort of a a big thing for me to put energy into, but it looks different for everyone. Um, and I would say probably too how you ex you you might find that even for yourself over time the things that cause your burnout are changing like I'll give you I'll give you an example. Okay. So my my wife is very understanding that I I like to work right. she understands that. Um, especially if I'm doing like I think for for stuff like content creation or like filming videos and stuff like she definitely gives me my space to do it.

Um, I suspect she probably looks at some of the YouTube stuff and she's like, "Okay, like I don't want to say she'll call it silly, but she's probably like, "Eh, whatever." But if I can say, "Hey, look, like um I have a course I have to launch, right? and I need to put the time into recording that video course. She knows that the courses translate into actual income. So, I think for her, she's going, it makes sense that like she appreciates it, right? Like, I understand that you are doing extra work to go above and beyond so that you can provide for our family more effectively, right? So, it feels like a more tangible thing, but she's very, very good. Uh, love her for it. I love her for many reasons, but I really appreciate that she gives me space to do work. But the reality is like that is not a uh a one-way street.

It's not like her give give uh and I take take on the, you know, amount of time that we get to spend together. It's not like I could go work a month and not see her. Um that would not be okay, right? Whereas before when I was a lot younger and I was single um you know I don't care like it doesn't matter. I don't I don't have any commitments to anyone. So now if I had work straining me to be like you got to get this done we need you to focus on this or whatever and it's after hours like I can get away with a little bit of that or I could do a lot of it for a short period of time but when it's sustained now I'm going to have this pull in the other direction where and and rightfully so

I'm not complaining about this where my wife would probably be like what the hell are you doing like remember me kind of thing like remember your life and um and yeah like it would it would absolutely not be fair. So suddenly the same type of situation in terms of like extra work right um could cause different amounts of friction, different amounts of stress. So the same type of thing could affect you differently at different points in your life. Um, now usually what we find with burnout is that it's more lowgrade things that accumulate, right? There's a there's a very big difference between working on a project, you're like, "Hey, this project kind of sucks." Or starting to work with someone and you're like, "I don't really like this person." right now. The next day, you're like, I'm not really motivated to go have a meeting with this person.

That's not burnout. That's just like, you know, a a short-term situation that kind of sucks. Like, you know, that kind of stuff's going to happen regularly. It's okay. But on the burnout side of things, generally, it's a lot more lowgrade uh accumulated over time. So, this person like I don't know anything about this person that that made the post on Reddit, right? Um, what might be happening is that over a long period of time, and when I say long period of time, I don't really know what the time scale is. Let's say years, several years, maybe they've been working on stuff where um they've been stretched just a little bit too thin, right? or they've been working on stuff and maybe the way that they're feeling uh compensated for it is not quite lining up for a sustained period of time. Just these like these things that seem like they're lowgrade over a long period of time that start to add up.

And I feel like that's why a lot of people don't recognize burnout. You'll hear people say, "Oh, I'm so burnt out." But like, is it just because you had a, you know, a busy week? Like, and I'm not trying to minimize that. I'm just trying to say like I think that that's probably different than burnout. To have a busy week or to have a busy day, to be tired from it, like rightfully so. But when we generally talk about burnout, it is, you know, like a sustained low-grade thing that has accumulated to the point where now it's uh problematic across a bunch of areas. So I don't know what has caused burnout for this individual. I think probably for most people there's some element of being stretched a little bit too thin for too long. Right? Even when I think about my own experience, like that's a common element always.

I would sit here and not not being a psychologist, I would argue that I don't think that that's always been the root cause because I actually do like I don't know if I would say perform better, but like there's something that gets me more motivated when I have like some pressure and I have a bunch of stuff to do. I kind of I feel like I do better in situations like that. I wish I didn't, but um so that's not I don't think the root of it. I think it's a common element though. Um I think for me the thing that drives um burnout the most is like when you combine that and and when I say uh for me I mean not my observation for other people. I mean my observation for myself is combining um being stretched a little bit too thin with um lack of autonomy.

I think that has been the uh probably the biggest contributor. Um I I really struggle when I don't have autonomy. So for example, if someone has set expectations for me and then I go, okay, I understand them like let me go work on that. if uh if I'm making decisions or doing things and and the result is like we'll just do it this way or just do it that way or um it it's not even when this has happened I don't feel like it's been so much of like we didn't trust you to do it or you didn't get it done so we're telling you how to go do it. It's more just like, um, thanks, but I had an opinion on this already, so like, we have to do it this way. And then I start to go, oh, what do you need me for then?

Right? That makes me feel very burnt out because I'm putting energy into something that does not result in uh an outcome that's, you know, proportional to the energy that I'm putting in. When I do that for a sustained period of time, I feel absolutely wrecked. And sustained period of time for the most recent example is only a couple of weeks of doing that or I'm doing a lot, putting a lot of energy in and then being like, I don't really have autonomy. Could be, you know, 2 to 3 weeks around a month, let's say, is when it's uh pretty obvious. How we doing for time? There's a lot of traffic back there. I think we're in the clear now. Um, yeah. I think honestly for this person, I don't know like how often they take vacation. Right. I'm not going to say like a vacation is going to go fix things.

Um, but that might be a stepping stone. Like taking some time off, backing out from some things, doing a little bit less might help. Um, it's interesting that they kind of hinted at like I wonder if I just need to like stop, do a career reset. The reason I say that's interesting is like it seems like they're acknowledging um there's some acknowledgement, I guess, to me that that they're saying like I think there's a lot going on. I think I need to to do less or I need to stop. But I kind of feel like their response is like a bit extreme, right? I think it I would change my mind on that if they were like I actually I have not enjoyed the work, right? I don't like the company. I don't like the work. Um and not even just like the domain like I actually don't like software development.

Um if they were talking about it that way, I might say like maybe time to to go re, you know, take a break and go rethink your career. Nothing wrong with that. But it's not what I'm reading, right? It's kind of the opposite. It's like like the people I work with, like the domain, like problem solving and building software. Okay, good. So, I I personally wouldn't just like try to reset everything from scratch, but I think stepping back would be good. I also think that there's an opportunity to step back from the things that are regularly, this is my opinion, regularly um you're regularly doing because if those are things you're regularly doing and they're lowgrade causing burnout, back away from those. All right? Do overall less. Right? So if you're saying yes to a lot of projects at work, maybe pump the brakes on that a little bit.

Whatever it happens to be, do a little less. And um I think that my next recommendation would be maybe try introducing a couple of other things slowly over time, whether that's a new hobby or like going for walks or just something, right? And the reason I say that is because going back to when I was thinking about depression in that comparison is like there might just be, you know, change of scenery for lack of better word. Um, I'm gonna move over lanes. No one's letting me in Monday and today. Bunch of mean people. Um, I think that introducing some new things could be kind of interesting, but not like not like um, okay, well, I'm going to go train for a marathon. Uh, like that might just be too much, right? But if you were like, "Hey, like you know, I'm going to start going for try going for walks at lunch or in the morning, right?

Or after work to to kind of detach from work." Like introducing some different things in your routine could be interesting. I think just to kind of break up what's going on. But again, I'm not a psychologist. I might just be making up. But I think for me, doing more nothing has never been helpful. um when I'm in like a depressive state, it's just about doing different things is what I found. So overall, a little bit less, but then doing different things, not doing nothing. Um the again, I'm kind of shifting back and forth between depression and uh and burnout. I I would say like probably the periods in my life where I've been like the most you know depressed were probably like relationship related and uh without going into details cuz it doesn't actually matter. One thing that uh probably in the latest example of that in my life, obviously before I was married, um I think probably like you know either breakup or whatever else.

Um I think what's been the most helpful is when I had friends that still made time for me. They're like, "We know that you're in a crappy mood or whatever. We know that you probably just want to sit at home and do nothing, but like, hey, like, we're gonna go, you know, it's we're just gonna go for dinner. We're going to go to the movies, whatever it is. Just some activity. And like we're not going to make the activity about you feeling bad, but like just some activity. And like, you know, you don't have to we're not expecting that you're going to be like the the happiest person ever, but like we're just going to go do something and it'll be good to spend time together. But they they made space for me that way with no expectations around it. You know, if it was like, hey, we're going to so and so's house.

We're going to hang out. And you know, if they're like, "Hey, if you're if you're ready to go home or whatever, just cuz you're not feeling great, like that's okay. You know, it's great to see you, but like we understand, like it's cool. Take off." And sort of that mix of understanding plus like getting time to be with other people or doing other things I found historically has always been a huge help. So again, I realize that's like a an example from depression, but my point is that it got me away from doing nothing. When I was doing nothing, things were much worse. But there were points I can remember again on like the depression side of things like just getting home and being like you know sitting on the ground with my dog or something and just being like there there is not a thing I could do right now that's going to bring like any any sort of joy in my life.

So let's wait here for a little bit and then when it's time to go to bed, we'll go to bed because at least you know you get a fresh start to the day. you ride a little bit of that energy before uh reality sets in, right? But I found once there was more things going on, not more stressors, maybe you could call them distractions, I don't know. Um that's why I'm not like not giving medical advice. I'm just kind of talking about for my experience. But for me, it was just about having those other things going on. Um, so maybe for this person that might be a strategy, but I think what they're experiencing is burnout. If um, you know, if they're comfortable with it, um, perhaps going to talk to someone who is a mental health professional could help. I know there's a stigma around that kind of stuff, unfortunately.

Right. It's like uh if you It's almost like if you're acknowledging especially on the mental side of things like you need help then like almost like oh well then you must have failed and it's like no it's just for some reason we all don't do it. Um like I should I should probably make time for even myself to go do that. So, I'm not setting a good example by not. Um, but I I think if someone's going through a lot of issues like that, then they'll probably shed more light on on some strategies, probably explain actually what's going on, too. If you were interested, right? If you're like, I don't understand why I'm like this, they could probably say, well, here's literally what's going on inside your head. I would like that. I think that would be cool. But yeah, I think that's probably it, folks.

Um, I'll wrap it up there. I hope that was helpful in some capacity. Burnout's uh not great. A lot of us will go through it. Um, awareness is key. And uh, in the end, I I don't think that doing nothing is the is the solution, but maybe diff less overall and different things to incorporate. Uh, and maybe that's a distraction, but that's what I found works for me. If you have different thoughts on that, maybe I'm not telling people like, hey, like go share all of your experiences, your personal experiences in the comments, but if you're comfortable sharing in the comments, um, you know, there are there are people that regularly leave comments and stuff. Uh, so there's people that regularly read through them. I've just shared a bunch from my side, right? Like I'm just one person. if you're comfortable sharing with others things that have worked for you or things that didn't, right?

Like, hey, this didn't work for me. Anything like that can be super valuable to other people. So, um, you know, if you're if you're feeling up to it and you want to write something that might help someone else, that that'd be very much appreciated. But we'll wrap it up there and I will see you next time, folks. Take care.