Revelations
May 6, 2006
I had a bit of a revelation last night..an epiphany you might say. I sit here and constantly think to myself why I haven’t had my shot yet (with regards to career). I see my peers doing much better then I am and here I am stuck never satisfied in what I am doing. I was unhappy at ClientLogic, I was unhappy at Prosodie and now here I am..six plus months in at my current employer and I am unhappy again. Each time for different reasons, I realize that a job can’t be perfect and that sometimes you have to just grin and bear it. But it is really tough seeing your friends doing better then you and knowing that you can be at that level as well but yet stuck dealing with…well…with what I deal with on a daily basis.
Well the revelation I had was that the problem is I have a fear of failure. I have a fear that if I try and move on to the next step I will not have enough experience and skills to do the job. I really need to work on this or I am going to be stuck in the circle of hell that I am in.
So anyone have any good ideas on how to beat this?
May 6th, 2006 at 1:29 am
If nobody else was watching would you still be afraid to fail? Just pretend nobody else is watching
In the IT industry we deal with a lot of ego and people that are to afraid to admit they don’t know everything or that they were wrong. I’m a bit older and have more experience now. But I still think I was smarter back when I was young and didn’t have an ego to protect 
May 6th, 2006 at 9:24 am
Hi
I quite funny. I was looking for a new Monitor (LG…) and came to your posting.
So here is my idea: I red a book about buddhism and business. It is written by a practicing western buddhist who used all the ‘rules’ of becoming happier in he buddhism term at business. ‘The name is The Diamond Cutter : The Buddha on Managing Your Business and Your Life’ written by Geshe Michael Roach.
Beside that it seems to be real buddhism his tips are just logical. Also his CV is quite convincing.
I had quite the same problem as you. I don’t know if the advices from that book could help or if I am just more relaxed looking for opporunities, but somehow it works quite good. Meanwhile I am head of a finance department and the youngest leader in this area of my company.
Anyway I would suggest to read the book. Also don’t forget that that you live on the sunny side of live compared to most other people in the world.
Good luck
Ulrich
P.S.: Since I am here in an IT-forum. Can anyone suggest an 20”-Monitor which I can use for watching TV with my Mac (or wrong forum)?
May 6th, 2006 at 10:11 pm
Jim:
That is a good question, more then likely no I wouldnt be afraid if someone is watching and i goof up. I’ve just always been in a position where the work i did was high visability. Especially now with my current employer. So I think that has alot to do with it.
Ulrich:
I’ll have to check that book out the next time i am at Borders. As for a good monitor to watch TV on. I wouldn’t know off the top of my head. Best bet would to check out the A/V forum on arstechnica.com. You can find some good info on there.
May 7th, 2006 at 9:54 am
Paul,
What you’re describing is a lack of confidence in yourself, specifically in your ability to grow your skillset and competence levels. In order to grow your confidence levels, you could take up part-time consulting work to do after hours. Start with something not mission critical, so it doesn’t come back and bite you if you don’t manage to do it. Then, as you find that your confidence level improves along with you skillset, you could either go self-employed like Adam, or you could find a position using the newly developed skills.
The other part is to work on your skills in your own time, which you’ve been doing so far. The consultancy work would allow you to apply the new skills in a professional setting, so you can not only reaffirm your own new skills, you can get the fact that you have these proven skills on your resume to find other contract work or a permanent-hire position somewhere better.
Lastly, get out of Buffalo. ;p It seems that town hasn’t been of much luck to you.
May 7th, 2006 at 9:57 am
WordPress seems to have eaten my comment :/ Damn broken OMGTRENDY software :p
May 8th, 2006 at 1:56 am
Amit:
For some reason your comments got moderated. GG wordpress
As for as the consulting work, I have thought about that. I been cruising around rentacoder looking for smallish type of jobs to build up what i have learned. Just havent found anything yet that i can tackle.
As for the getting out of Buffalo part, hopefully by this time next year Amanda will know where she will end up as far as her residency is concerned. We have already talked about getting the hell out of this area/state.
May 8th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
Dude! To quote Nike:
Just Do It!
Seriously, I’ve learned lots of stuff messing around after hours and at home. I’ve always asked to help on projects just so I can get my hands (and head) on more stuff. It is a heck of a lot of work, but let me say this: this is the time to do this kind of thing. Once you get hitched and have children, your time to learn new shit and screw with stuff goes way way down. Carpe diem and all that.
You have to realize failing isn’t a bad thing; not learning from your failures is the only bad thing. Seriously, everybody worth a crap in the IT/IS field has fucked up some big time shit - we joke with my last boss about ‘things not to do in NDS repair’ that he pulled when he was an engineer and he is now the CIO. Don’t be afraid of mucking shit up; if you ain’t breaking something, you ain’t engineering!