Ask HN: How do you motivate yourself to do your best work?

Hi everyone,

I have been working as a software engineer for a while now and have built confidence in my skills, but I’m recently struggling to motivate myself to apply these skills to do work that I am happy with at my job. I have a great job, great coworkers, a fantastic manager who gives me everything I need, work in my ideal environment, and I’m still struggling to find motivation to complete my tasks, let alone to the standard that I know I could. I have very strong feelings about making things good and doing my best, so while half assing things like this is rewarding in the short term, in the long term I just feel like I’m doing bad work and not living up to my potential. I should say (I think) my teammates love me and my managers are happy with my work and keep giving me raises and promotions. But (while my family and I certainly appreciate the money) it kind of makes me feel bad because I feel like they’re going to realize how badly I’m doing at some point. I don’t have some kind of feudal loyalty to the company, but I do feel a loyalty to my managers and coworkers who have helped me a lot and always treated me very well. I don’t want to leave this job because it’s great and I’m almost certain whatever other job I get would be objectively worse, but I really feel like I need to change something so I can feel good about my work again.

I think earlier in my career I had this drive to prove myself that was a big motivator for me to to my best, and now that I’m more confident in my skills I don’t have that motivation anymore.

Anyway, I know there’s nothing more annoying than someone complaining about how good their situation is, but I would really appreciate advice from anyone reading who’s been in a similar situation.

Thanks for reading.

6 comments

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poggies 3y ago ↗

Feels to me like you have an Imposter syndrome, which can really take a tool upon a mental health. It is really common within the IT people. Regarding to motivation. People are built of habits. Once you start rolling out anything consistently, it will turn into a habit and you wont even feel it.

JonShartwell 3y ago ↗

Thanks a lot for your comment. I think you’re right that I have fallen into habits out of line with what I really value (doing good work) and fixing those is very useful advice. I can write a lot of words whining about how it’s hard for me to find motivation but if my problem is that I don’t feel like I’m doing good work then the solution can only be to actually do good work.

WRT imposter syndrome, I understand it’s very common but I don’t think it’s my current problem. Earlier in my career I did have this imposter feeling like “I don’t belong to be here with these people much smarter and more capable than me.” Now I feel like I have proven myself and I do deserve to be here, but I feel like I can’t motivate myself to live up to the potential I have. I.e. I want to do better work, and I feel like if I could motivate myself then I could, but I struggle to motivate myself. Maybe if I think more about why it is that I want to do better work then that will become a more powerful motivator for me.

poggies 3y ago ↗

I'm going to reply with the correct thing that you might not like. The correct answer would be to go to a counselor and talk with them about the problem. I always argue that people should not try finding solutions to their mental struggles online, and with any type of medical stuff. I see that you earn a good buck, and I think that you can afford a couple of sessions. So, take some time to get the courage and start it.

JonShartwell 3y ago ↗

I appreciate the advice, but I already see a therapist. Here I was looking more for perspectives from people with personal experience.

Also I think “get a counselor” is really overused advice that can be a lot less helpful than people think. I have had 5 therapists in my life (I clearly have a lot of problems haha) and all of them except the current one I would say were actively harmful to my mental health. I think I have had particularly bad luck and am an unusual case, but the generic advice glosses over the fact that finding a therapist who works for you is not an easy task, whether you can afford it or not. If someone is asking for advice with a specific problem online, I think it’s a lot more helpful to try to help than to tell them that they need to undertake what could be a months or years long process to find a therapist who works for them, and act like that’s easy.

night-rider 3y ago ↗

Motivation is unreliable. Consistency & discipline are key when trying to achieve difficult tasks. Motivation has peaks and troughs, consistency has repeated activity spread out over time. Motivation is good for quick sprints. Consistency & discipline are good for marathons.

JonShartwell 3y ago ↗

Thanks for your comment and advice. That makes sense and I think I understand - if I want to achieve something then it takes discipline and motivation will not always exist for me to rely on. But the part I’m struggling with is why try to achieve it / do good work to begin with.

I think I’m overcomplicating things. If I want to do good work and clearly not doing good work doesn’t make me feel good, maybe it’s enough to understand that doing better work will make me feel better and that’s enough motivation in itself. Kind of like how the amateur runner doesn’t run to win a medal but because they see it’s good for them and that makes them happy.