From Burnout to Breakthrough
Discovering my why
I have been struggling lately.
It's been a constant battle, trying to find the clarity to motivate myself to perform and to muster the energy just to get started on a project.
Why?
To explain everything, it helps to know I'm an extremely empathetic person. I feel other people's emotions deeply, and I care about others sometimes to an unhealthy level. If my wife had a rough day, I feel like I had a rough day and try to make it better. When someone asks for help, I jump at the opportunity. If I have the chance to do one small act to improve your day, I'll take it.
Where does all this fit into my struggles?
Over the years, I've observed a recurring pattern of highs and lows, yet I've never truly delved into the reasons behind it. I've often attributed it to job monotony or relationship issues. But now, I realize it's more than that. It's time for a deeper introspection.
And then it isn't. Again.
As a 30-something husband and soon-to-be father, it's essential to be grounded and a source of stability for my family. I can't do that when I'm up and down and working on this and then that. I can't be constantly loving your job one day and then wishing you could quit the next. It's been a long time coming, but it was time for a bit of introspection. I connect so well with other people's feelings that I've put my feelings on the back burner, saying, "I'll get to it one day."
Well, today's that day (and I do mean today... as in I'm discovering this stuff about me as I'm writing).
It all begins with a summer internship as a help desk technician for a global company. I spent my days answering calls, turning machines off and on, and resolving issues until it was time to clock out. I've never been a huge IT guy (but ironically found myself in plenty of IT positions), so I didn't enjoy that part of the job. But what I enjoyed the most was hearing that sigh of relief when you recovered a file someone thought was lost forever, or a smile after patiently guiding someone through how to use some software. It was the people, not the problems, that kept me coming back each day.
Fast forward to my first real developer job. I'm writing the frontend for various web apps used by churches and non-profits. The apps themselves weren't all that spectacular: a directory, some payroll software, and a giving platform. Nothing revolutionary. But, looking back, the most enjoyable part of that job was why I was building that software. It wasn't for the money (because let's be honest, it wasn't much). It was because I was building software for organizations that were out there helping people. It was because we could see the joy on people's faces at our annual user conference when we showed them what we'd been working on that year. Again, it was the people. It was a feeling that you were doing something that was having a direct impact on people's lives.
This brings us to today. I now work for a healthcare organization, where I was initially hired as a WordPress developer. It was ok for the most part. But I never really felt the impact of what I was working on. Departments would ask for a site, we'd build it, and then we likely wouldn't hear from them again for months. It wasn't until I began working on design systems that things started to look up. But again, why was this so fulfilling? It could be because I was solving problems with a mix of logic and creativity. It could be because I could see an immediate impact on other developers' productivity. But whatever it was, as the work on our design system slowed, so did my motivation to roll out of bed and log on in the morning. Writing code wasn't fulfilling enough on its own.
I've gotten to the point where I can't take the highs and lows anymore. I've thrown everything I could think of against the wall to see what would stick: I've tried content creation, all the AI coding and design tools, working on my portfolio, and spending hours on LinkedIn looking for my next job to bring back that high. But I don't think any of that stuff will matter if I don't know why I'm doing it.
But I know why now. I was meant to help people. It's the only thing that has consistently brought me joy over the years, from my family and friends to my coworkers and customers. When I tried chasing the money or the fame or the success, my heart's never been in it. But helping my mom get her printer connected, filling up my wife's water bottle, picking up a friend from the airport, or adding a new prop to a button component so a coworker can finish up a feature they were working on? These are just a few examples of the countless ways I've found joy in helping others.
I've been too focused on what I was doing to realize why I was doing it.
All this to say, you need to discover your why. You can dream of releasing that app that hits #1 on the app store, a million followers on social media, or becoming the CEO of a successful startup. And those are all great goals. But that's all they are. Once you find out your why, the goals tend to take care of themselves. I'm no longer obsessed with applying to all the latest design roles or becoming the next AI success story or getting 500K likes on a post. My advice to you is to take the time to understand what truly brings you joy and fulfillment. It might not be what you expect, but once you find it, everything else will fall into place.
Each morning I wake up, and I'm determined to make other people's lives better. That gives me all the fulfillment and joy that I need. Everything will work itself out from there.