Rant: Be Yourself by Backing Yourself, With Confidence.
“It isn’t the mountain ahead that wears you out; it’s the grain of sand in your shoe.”
Bula reader,
Last week, I was on PTO (Paid Time Off aka Holiday) in Samoa for a quick break with my wife before the baby arrives in August.
This week I’m in Suva, Fiji for work.
As most of us highly-wired people know, it's hard to switch off when on holiday. Research shows that it takes about 8 days to fully wind down and actually be on a "break."
It's a particularly busy period at work at the moment, different from other times of busyness in my career as an engineer.
As a solution architect, I move in a fluid space between customer interfacing engagement to work out the technical, organisational, and often economic and political challenges. And the technical and sometimes not-so-technical solutions that best help the customer solve their challenges.
Life was a lot simpler earlier in my career as a systems or DevOps engineer because I worked for one company, had specific requirements in specific areas, and had a limited set of solutions to choose from. It's funny thinking back on the concept of "scope creep" now because when this happens during a project, it becomes a source of stress for engineers. Even with my limited math skills, I understood that more variables equals more ways for this to go wrong.
And that causes stress.
Even though the landscape at a senior level of my tech career is quite different from my earlier engineering roles, the potential for stress remains the same.
I'm sure motivated and ambitious people already feel pressure to achieve and for tech people, it's also about not looking or sounding stupid because there’s a lot of smart folks in tech.
But this pressure can often lead to making sub-optimal short-term decisions. These decisions are not great in the long term, and as they accumulate, so does the stress. You end up taking on more than you can reasonably expect to manage in a workday, and then it spills over into the rest of your life.
If you stretch yourself like this for long enough, it leads to a spiral. At first, it may not be super dramatic, but everything slowly gets pulled into a big arc, like a whirlpool. Regular gym sessions start getting cut short and eventually missed altogether. Coffee catch-ups with family and friends get pushed aside, and you end up not catching up with them for long periods of time. 6pm work finishes turn into "checking in on things" after dinner at 8pm.
Your sleep suffers, you become more irritable because you haven't worked out in a while, and your mood makes it even harder to deal with the new work stresses. Even if you think you're performing at the level you were before, it's definitely costing you more in energy and willpower.
And why do we do this?
Why don't we set healthy boundaries around work and commit to energy-replenishing activities and practices that enable us to live a healthier and more sustainable life?
It seems like such an obvious thing for us to do.
Is it because we’re scared we might get fired if we don't take on all the extra work?
Maybe, but that's not it.
Is it because this is actually how you grow, and pressure makes diamonds, and all that “hustle-nomics”?
Sure, a bit of struggle towards goals is a path for personal and professional growth, but this ain't it.
Maybe it's really because you're scared you're not good enough, and that if you don't push yourself to earn your place at work, your value as a person and member of society diminishes along with it?
Yeah, maybe that's it.
Is imposter syndrome really just a lack of self-confidence and the self-fulfilling behaviour that follows, creating an environment around you that confirms your already prejudiced belief that you're not good enough?
Maybe that's the reason you can't stand up to your boss and say, "you know what, these projects work out to be about 3 x 40-hour weeks worth of work, so we're going to have to push the deadline or figure out another way to deliver this."
Instead, you work evenings and weekends for free for a company you don't own or have shares in.
“It's not that easy, Ron. We have families to feed and bills to pay.”
Sure, but do you think the way you see yourself and the world and how you carry yourself, given those perspectives, are compartmentalised at work and don't perpetuate themselves in other aspects of your life?
What about with your family? Your relationships? Pretty much every area of your life?
How you provide for your family and how you pay your bills have a lot to do with how you see yourself and your level of confidence in who you are and what you can do.
I've talked to a talented software engineer who is missing out on at least 20k (minimum) in salary because he lacks the confidence to back himself in a pay negotiation and leverage the cost-benefit factor at his company should he search for other roles.
I've helped a loved one “pull the trigger” and hand in their resignation after an absolutely terrible pay review process. They didn't feel they deserved what they were asking for, only to be given everything they requested and more the minute the resignation email was received.
I've seen talented engineers strain their own and their families' mental health because they can't say no to work or to a manager and set healthy boundaries (FYI resigning is setting a boundary) to keep their lives manageable.
I didn't just wake up to this realisation overnight.
I spent years as a systems engineer, working until midnight multiple times in the office, juggling a portfolio of stressful projects that all seemed to be "high priority." I felt stretched thin and trapped with few options because I didn't believe in myself enough to know that I could leave and find a better situation.
As my confidence in my abilities changed - through experience and with the help and support of people I respected personally and professionally - so did my behaviour.
I moved to contracting and started backing myself on job applications, pay negotiations, my expert opinion on technical matters in projects and I would regularly practice setting boundaries around hours of work and contact.
I was still just an engineer, building things in the cloud, advising on things like CICD, Container security and Kubernetes - I was just going about it differently and not accepting anything less than what I knew I was worth in terms of money and respect.
Everything springs forth from you—the person, you.
If you're not in a good space, what springs forth from that?
Nothing good.
Who's looking after you?
Well, it better damn well be you if nobody else, because it's nobody else's responsibility.
I know it sounds obvious when you say it, but if your vessel, the one physical vehicle you have to drive in this world (i.e., your body; sure, the mind is included in this concept), is running like shit, how on earth are you going to execute anything you want to get done in this world?
If your mind is so sleep-deprived, stressed, and mentally ill that you can't focus on good communication or take in and process information, seriously, what are we even talking about at that point?
I watched a short clip about professional athletes where a coach was saying, "they don't do anything extraordinary—they just do ordinary things, but they do it extra, i.e., daily."
Sure, it's a little bit of playing with semantics, but I think the point remains.
Do the things that look after you, and do them consistently.
Keep the vessel in check, make sure it gets sleep, hydration, some exercise.
Don't eat too much junk.
Talk to your friends and family regularly.
Get off the devices.
Journal some stuff every day; it doesn't have to be War & Peace, just offload some of that stuff in your head onto paper and move on, at least a little bit, with your life.
As long as you check this stuff off first, as a priority1 the rest of whatever you want for your life can sit on top of that foundation with a half-decent chance of actually making it.
I’m not sure I meant for this weeks newsletter to be a ranty one, but I think when the work busy season is starting to ramp into full swing, this message of “look after yourself” becomes even more important for everyone, including myself, to hear.
Thanks for reading - see you in the next one.
If you genuinely found this post interesting, please give it a ❤️ to let me know 🙏🏽
Learning
Things I’m actively studying or learning this week…
‘AWS Certified Security - Speciality’ - Practice Exams
Studying for the‘AWS Certified Security - Speciality’certificate:100% Completed.
Building
Things I’m building or working on this week…
PTO and overseas this week for work - minimal building time this week.
Interesting Reads
Articles or other writing that stood out to me this week…
I need to get back to my readwise reading list.
Community
Other projects in community I’m working on…
Pasifika Tech Education Charity - Providing Tech Learning Opportunities for the Pasifika Community.
Pasifika Tech Network - A Network for Pasifika Tech Professionals & Learners.
“progress, not perfection” no-ones saying you need to be nail this 100% every day, just prioritise this shit, OK?