Work = Anxiety--

#programming #stress #productivity #career

There's a knot in your stomach...

You stop by the coffee place on your commute and notice the clock creeping past 9am with the growing dread that you have a bunch of Tasks this Sprint, some of which you have no idea how to do (yet) - and it's been this way for a week, over a couple of weekends and sleepless mornings.
Sound familiar at all?

As you turn on your PC, your brain immediately tries to pull you towards more mundane tasks.

Email - checked!
Updates - updated!
Teams/Slack messages - marked as read!
Coffee - on the desk!
Headphones - on!
Anxiety - churning away!

You know that there is a big, ugly, messy, difficult Task that you need to do and it's giving you angst, but I'm going to let you in on the secret to getting rid of that anxious feeling
...you're not going to like it but
...you'll know it's true.

You need to just start.
That's all.
Don't think so hard or your emotional lizard brain will sabotage you...again. Zombie brain and go!

At first you'll resist even starting because that means admitting that you don't know what you're doing. But I promise you, the level of angst you feel in a coding job is in direct proportion to your level of activity on your toughest task.

Here's how it will go:

You start
You hit a wall
You ask someone for help
It starts working
You learn something new
You start to gain confidence
You start to feel good
Anxiety, imposter feelings all drop sharply

You will always and I mean always be able to find some small, insignificant task other than the big one to do. Don't let your emotional response control your ability to act intentionally now.

Now, to take the advice myself and start coding this Managed Identity task I've been convincing myself is too hard :)

We're all in this together, I'm here for you.