Don’t burn out! Ask for help and guidance when needed, and take care of your mental and physical health (get a hobby, go out with friends, go to the gym, etc.)
I’ve seen brilliant people burn out and end up leaving/missing out growth opportunities because of it. Now that I manage people, it is my biggest area of focus because many times the best employees are the most at risk. They keep getting praise and asked to be involved in more and more and it becomes hard to say ‘no’ to new projects, responsibilities, etc… Until it is to much.
When it happens everyone looses, your boss, your team, the company, and especially you.
a million times this, so many young people overwork themselves and burn out quickly
I cringe whenever a see someone has checked in code at 1am on a weekend, and these people are also working normal business hours so it’s not like they are only working at night
sadly it’s usually the same people who never take PTO either
What if my whole problem is I don’t know what I need or what kind of help I could use?
Whenever I work a job that’s too complex for me, part of the problem is I can’t clearly define what the heck is going on to even know what kind of thing would help.
It’s like my brain just start blanking out.
There is no one perfect solution unfortunately.
Meeting a therapist will definitely help to identify the root cause, and eventually will help.
Also, see my post YSK: Understanding the work burnout experience, treatment and preventions
I think the root cause is the complexity. I do a lot better in jobs where the situations might change but the rules don’t. In programming, everything is changing all the time and I can’t keep up. There’s no repetition and if you are repeating yourself you’re doing it wrong.
I need parts of the day when I’m not being creative within a formally strict environment. It takes too much processing power for my brain to do that, and it overworks me.
I know the root cause and the problem is solved because I’m working jobs that have complexity within the range I can handle.
