Ask HN: How to Overcome Feelings of Inadequacy?
Hi, I've been a software engineer for about 4 years now, and I feel like I can't make any useful piece of software. I usually get stuck and take a while to make any meaningful progress.
For example; I tried making some programs around terrain generation in OpenGL, and was able to get something nice. However, it seems that there are so many people that did the same thing but way better. I saw a video of someone make a Minecraft terrain in 48 hours. And just today, saw a High-school student make a procedurally generated terrain for their game, which is way better than mine.
Seeing the successes of all these people brings me so much anxiety and prevents me from moving forward with projects I want to do. Does anyone else feel the same way, or know if anyway to get out of this mental trap?
15 comments
[ 9.7 ms ] story [ 42.0 ms ] threadIf so, maybe you need to find someone who needs solutions built for them. Or to collaborate with them leading your progressions into a longer form solution!
Most importantly, don't measure your success against anyone but yourself, yesterday.
Might be a good idea to find someone to help make things into a longer form solution, but I'm fairly introverted/shy, so that's always a challenge, but good advice!
I agree, but it's hard sometimes, you know? I for some reason can't help but compare, even though it does no good.
Thanks for the advice :D
What do you really want to do?
For what I really want to do, I am not really sure anymore to be honest. There are jobs that I think would be very interesting and a nice change of pace, like Graphics Engineering, but I always end up thinking I'm too under qualified. I'm almost done my Masters in Computer Science, but still don't feel too qualified.
In that case I would take some time, be loving and kind to yourself, enjoy life, and consider what you would really like to do. Learn about a bunch of different things.
Then, go gradually. Learn to take one small step at a time. Read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, which has a lot of wisdom about this subject. The Tao Te Ching is another great example of literature on wisdom and patience.
If you doubt yourself and don’t want to, then you need to accumulate small victories consistently over a long period of time. Write down in one place all of the things that you have accomplished and keep adding to it all the time. Call it a brag journal if you will. Eventually the evidence will accumulate that you are capable of what you want to do.
Finally, I recommend therapy and professional coaching to really break through any underlying psychological barriers that you have e.g. pathological belief systems. My email is open if you want to talk further.
I'll check out those books, I've heard a lot about Marcus Aurelius.
Well, sounds like pretty interesting thing to do, so rewarding in itself maybe. Is it published on github or elsewhere?
Also, as someone doing graphics programming mostly as a hobby, I think a good thing to do is to learn the artistic side of things (to some extent), might give you some advantage.
Yea the artistic side of things might be good to try, I do like the idea of exploring toon shading more.
> exploring toon shading
Sounds excellent! And don't hesitate to publish your work.
That is not to say that one is intrinsically better than the other, but for a technically-minded person (== any programmer in this case), the way Houdini works will make much more sense.
Learning either of these tools is not an easy task, but I think that starting with Houdini will feel more natural in cases like yours (SE background, interest in interactive graphics).
You can email me (see my profile here) for some more Houdini-talk!
Yea I do think I haven't found my niche yet, I tend to read about a lot of different things, and hard to focus on one thing specifically. Thanks for the advice.