Finding Your Place

Does your job haunt your off time or you feel like you are complaining too much lately? Have you found yourself wondering if you should be looking for a new job? In this talk, we will focus on how to find the passion for your work again and give you some tips and tricks for discovering where your skill set and interests lay. Too often, we are quick to jump into a new job to fix the problems, only to find our next job is the same. Let’s look at what you can do to change your current position to better meet your needs and figure out what it is you are really looking for.

Transcript

1. Finding Your Place
2. Abridged Version These are not my original slides. Most of the content was delivered through the personal stories shared in my talk. However I created this version to share the information with you. AKA - The really wordy version
3. Chris Shepherd Software Engineer at Etsy @bitlost
5. What I love about Etsy • Certified B Corp • Believes in empowering small businesses with the ability to change the way global economy works • Reducing our carbon footprint • Provides Entrepreneurial training for artisans looking for new ways to support themselves and their families • Each employee has five days a year to spend volunteering in their communities • Supports Recurse Center formerly Hacker School.
6. Tell me how? Thought I needed to find the right job to solve my problems. However the correct job wasn’t the problem, I needed to do some introspection.
7. What did I learn
8. I am naturally lazy have control issues can procrastinate
9. Why bring this up?
10. Repeating Cycle Found that I had shared this common pattern from job to job. I would start out happy and excited about my new job, over time I would start to complain, eventually I would move on thinking my next job must be what I am looking for.
11. What Changed? Started working for an online marketer. The crazy hours, type of work which pushed my ethics and morals, and eventual change in myself, almost cost my marriage.
12. Now what? Wanted to leave this job, but realized doing that would be insane. I would be repeating the same pattern and expecting a different result. So leaving just because I was unhappy wasn’t the fix. I needed to figure out what was going on in my life.
13. It’s not you, it’s me
14. I am part of the problem I couldn’t fix anything until I accepted that I was part of the problem. I couldn’t expect the perfect job to fix my issues. It was important to learn what I was unhappy about, why I needed it to change, and what I was looking for.
15. Gratitude List It was hard to stay in a job I disliked while working on this. I wanted to leave, but I knew it wouldn’t fix the problem. My wife suggested I start with a gratitude list of the things I liked about my job. To give me something positive to focus on. This helped when I felt overwhelmed, keeping a positive mindset gave me the ability to keep moving forward.
16. What do I love about my job?
17. What I love about programming This is not the same as my gratitude list. I realized along the way that I was questioning if I wanted to keep programming. I needed to figure out what I liked about my job again. However when I tried to figure it out, I couldn’t come up with more than a few things.
18. Had to dig deeper To help figure out what I loved. I started a journal, I recommend using things like twitter or your blog. Every day when you run into things you love write them down so you can reference this list. I would put things down like… I loved finding a solution to XYZ challenge, I love making new ui tools that exceed customers expectations, I enjoyed playing with big data and Hadoop, etc.
19. Learned about Buckets of Control
20. 3 Buckets Things I could control Things I could influence Things I had no control over
21. Why am I unhappy?
22. What Makes Me Unhappy Looking at buckets of control, I created a list of things that were making me unhappy in my current and past jobs. It was important to recognize if I had control over these things. The ultimate goal here is to create a list of things that are not okay for me in a job and to recognize areas I need to improve.
27. What did I learn? • I don’t like being micromanaged, need a boss who will listen and have a discussion. • Family is number 1, will work overtime but not continue working 80+ hours as a norm. • If I hang around in a job with poor morals and ethics, it will affect me. Instead I wish to be somewhere with strong ethics that will raise me up instead. • It takes hard work. Am I putting more time towards working on myself or towards watching tv? • I will fail, it is normal, do I get back up and try again? • This will be uncomfortable, that is normal and I can work through it. • I need to ask for help, need friends and mentors I can rely on to vent, get feedback, and encouragement. • Change will take time, won’t happen immediately.
28. Everything is Perfect Now err… wait there are things I can’t control
29. I love my coworkers You spend the majority of your day with your coworkers, it is important to have a good relationship. If you find yourself struggling, it is important to find little things you have in common or both enjoy. It will give you something to connect on. Those small things can make your time more enjoyable. It is hard to love going to work, if you can’t stand the people you are with.
30. I need help Life often gives us more than we can handle. It will kick you in the teeth. For times like this it is important to have a mentor and peers. People you can talk with, vent to, and ask for help. These are people in your life with experience who can give you feedback and encouragement. Also to let you know when you have complained enough and need to take action.
31. Mentors I have found 3 types of mentors in my life • Life Coach: Someone I can talk to about personal growth and dealing with what life throws at me. • PHP Mentor: Work with peers who can help me to become a better programmer. • Peer Group: Started a book club to focus on specific topics and provide regular accountability while working on goals.
32. Tips for your peers • Realize that different peers have different life skills and experience. It is normal to change who you speak to when you need different types of advice. • Don’t complain to everyone, only one or two people, otherwise you are practicing a bad habit ;)
33. Small Steps You can only change 1 or 2 things at a time successfully. Prioritize and choose what you want to work on. If you tackle too much you will fail.
34. Using what I learned
35. Work with your manager It was important to learn about myself before I could talk with my manager. Once I know what I want, what drives me crazy, and what things are important to me in my job, then I can have a constructive conversation. Without this information, I don’t have a direction or purpose to talk about. Be constructive, your manager wants to work with you!
36. Thank You! Twitter: @bitlost PHP Mentoring: http://phpmentoring.org Leave Feedback: https://joind.in/16013 Email: chris.shepherd@gmail.com Slides: http://www.abitlost.com/finding-your-place/