Ask HN: How to not base self worth on your own work?
I'm a CS junior who is doing a lot of web development as of late.
I just realized that all my life I've been basing my self worth on how awesome my programming projects are. That means if my project sucks then I go into a slump, and if my project turned out to be great then I am elated. I also judge people by how good their projects are or where they work and it leads to me not having a good social life. It's not the healthiest mindset I know.
Basically I have pretty bad self esteem and I feel like I compensate for it by trying to do more and more projects.
Has anyone gone through something like this and have any advice on how to deal with it?
64 comments
[ 6.6 ms ] story [ 110 ms ] threadimho self-worth must come from why you do something. Search for the core values that define your actions. Persistence, empathy, discipline... whatever you define as the leading factors of your life. Then stick with them. As long as you are true to yourself, that is, you stick to your why, you'll find self-worth.
this is a really interesting way of looking at other people. Try to understand their core values and compare them with yours.
Accept that your values may change over the years. Coherence is a self-defeating value.
It makes me feel like a complete stranger too.
You need also to focus on what is between the start and the end of a project. People may fail but learn a lot and know even more than you because of this failure. Keep in mind that what make good stories are peripeties.
You eventually have to reach a place where you realize two things: you will suck at life sometimes and your worth isn't tied to those times. Failure is inevitable for most people, and the sooner you accept that failure or stumbling or some other fault (no matter how minor) will happen, the sooner you can realize they don't own you and don't define who you are.
I mean, honestly, the answer is right there in the word itself: self-worth. Your self-worth should be derived from people who value you for more than your work. It should be derived from someone valuing you not any sort of external criteria. It could be your wife/husband, your dog, your God, or whomever, but ultimately it boils down to you learning to value yourself beyond these things.
I used to put an intense amount of my self-worth into my work. A totally unhealthy amount. I felt good about myself because I was in my early 20's, writing books, being invited to speak at international conferences, working at the hottest startups, making a bunch of money. I was building my self image around this empire of dirt that I'd cobbled together based on how good of a programmer I am (and how well I could network). Then I tried to start a consultancy, which didn't work out great. I tried to build products there, that failed. I got fired from my next job. I felt like utter crap because I didn't understand why I was being personally punished and devalued. My work had betrayed me!
But it was at this point that I had to realize that anyone or anything that judged me by my work or my ability to work at the cool startup or my ability to be a part of some project wasn't judging me at all. They were judging my work, and I can't let my value and self image be tied up in that. For me, the first person I needed to teach that lesson to was myself.
And I did. And it wasn't fun. It's not fun to totally change your worldview, but oh my gosh, I feel so much better about life now. Not feeling like I live and die by the work I do frees me to do some of the best work I've done in my whole life. Sure, I'm not working at America's Next Great Startup and sure I'm not speaking at 2 conferences a month and sure I'm not signing up book deals all the time now, but holy crap I'm so much happier.
So, yes. People experience this exact thing. And it can crush you. But please don't let it. Find the worth within yourself and surround yourself with things and people that will support that.
- People who go to church on Sunday feel the need to tell you about it on Monday.
- The guy at work who runs marathons, is running all the time. He never comes to lunch because he is doing a practice run.
- People who are fat. ...well, I am sorry, but if it was genetic then there would be 500lb people in Europe too.
- People who work, work and work and work. A lot of Americans fall under this category.
I think taking pride in your work is a good thing. Knowing when you could do better is a good thing. Building your sense of self around any one aspect of your personality is a bad thing.
Aim to be more well-rounded. Try to find lots of things you like doing. Moderate your activities. Live a less extreme life.
(I have obviously made some assumptions here. This post probably applies more to me than anyone else. :)
More broadly, I think you're falling into the trap of assuming the loudest/most prominent people represent the average. Just like there are a lot of people who run and also do other things, there are lots of people who are quietly religious.
I don't even get where being fat comes into this? There are a lot of factors that go into Americans being fatter on average than Europeans, but your list devolved into the typical one-dimensional "I hate North Americans because I moved to Europe and I'm so continental now" rant.
> Aim to be more well-rounded
Good advice for everyone, regardless of where they live.
sorry I just had to :)
Not sure if I agree. Being "well-rounded" will result in being mediocre at everything, i.e. jack-of-all-trades-but-master-of-none. If you want to excel at something, you need to specialize and focus on that thing, usually to the exclusion of a lot of other things. Einstein wasn't "well-rounded" but he no doubt lived a fulfilling life and had a lot of impact on the world. Not everyone can be Einstein, or even wants to be Einstein, but I think being very good at a few things would make them feel more satisfied with their lives than chasing after many different interests and goals. That's just my opinion though.
I also disagree with your characterization of Americans. If anything, people in this country are very good at noticing what they are not good at, and live their lives trying to plug those perceived holes, rather than focusing on developing themselves in what they are good at. This is mostly because the consumer culture emphasizes people's imperfections in order to sell them products and services. You walk down the magazine isle of a bookstore and are bombarded with messages: you're out of shape, you need to be better at sex, you need to learn how to talk to people better, you totally need to check out the latest and hottest JavaScript framework bro! That's where the obsession with well-roundedness comes from.
Now, here's the caveat: people who combine multiple disciplines tend to be very successful. There was a story discussed on HN recently about this where Elon Musk's ex-wife pointed that out. I agree with that. But even then, we're talking about two or three things at most. Steve Jobs is a good example: he understood technology and design, but he definitely could not be described as "well-rounded."
Also, the point of being "well-rounded" wasn't to excel at all activities, but by not totally subsuming yourself in one activity you might achieve a broader perspective about experiencing life.
Considering the question in the OP, it is funny you brought up Einstein, Musk, and Jobs in your reply.
I would file this under the 'extreme consumerism' department that America is quite famous for though.
Even if that's true you're making the assumption that being excellent at something will make the poster happy and improve his self-esteem. Maybe being average at lots of different things will make him happy.
I grew up Catholic (fortunately, I was cured ;), but I never came across anyone with the 'need' to tell others about the fact that they went to church.
I do think the quote below is less and less followed today:
"A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."
-Robert A. Heinlein
Follow that by government subsidies that lean towards larger agribusiness which are ruled by companies that produce the most calorie dense foods at the cheapest prices. No, you cannot feed the world without GMO corn, soy, rice etc. Just the same, when you subsidize this it creates an artificial incentive to buy more of it. Pre-packaged Hamburger Helper, candy bars (the likes of "health" bars, granola etc are candy here too) rule the roost even for those that do cook at home.
The third being marketing. Americans are targeted by junk food ads far too much. Everything from placement on store shelves to stores that operate on junk food (convenience stores with gas stations)... leading towards most of the U.S. necessitating cars to drive just about everywhere, which feeds laziness.
The fourth being laziness and atrophy... By the time you get to an age where you start to care it may well be too late to make significant change. I didn't know a fraction of what I know about nutrition in my late teens and early 20's... Now, I have a broken metabolism and simply reducing calories alone doesn't work... it leads to a binge cycle. I avoid carbs because of what it does to my blood sugar, but even then trying to keep calories in relative check, getting enough each day and not going over is far more difficult at 40, than it would have been when I was younger. Compound this at a generational level, and it just feeds on itself.
I'm not making excuses here, it's just not as cut and dry as "you are fat, and you shouldn't be". Not to mention assumptions about health care... it's cheaper on the community for you to be fat and die at 60, than to live until 80+.
A few years out of college, I was working at a startup building UAVs. It was pretty awesome. We had to move for me to take this job and my wife switched schools for the move. After 2 years she wasn't happy and wanted to move back to her original school to finish her degree. In order to make the move happen I had to take a programming job that was horrible. I was doing .NET web sites and babysitting a SharePoint server. Horrible, but I did it for my wife. I thought I would have to explain the blip on the radar in the future. While I was at this job, I met a guy who was a consultant for a silicon valley startup. He talked me into joining their company. That was 7 years ago. By taking the crap job, I found a dream job.
Just code, learn, and keep your eyes open.
It's what I do outside of my work defines me much more. I am into travelling, adventures and mountain-based activities. All weekends possible I spend in alps trying not to kill myself, but not too hard. During week it's workouts in gym, interval runs, climbing indoors, biking etc. Not really marathon-style fit, but quite OK.
When I meet somebody new, I ask 1 question about their work, and don't go deeper (unless it's super amazing, which in 99% is not). I do care who hey are as a person, what drives them and what they do in their free time, where they travelled etc. If they cannot talk about anything but work, I'll pass.
One of benefits is (apart from feeling great, being happy with myself and so on) - remove my work (for whatever reason), and I am still happy. Add it, I'll try to find some new professional challenges, but won't break my back and remove personal life just to prove something to somebody (pre-release exceptions happen :)). But all in all, we are all unique mix, and each of us has to find his/her own way to these things.
Want a different perspective? Take a backpack, and head for 2-4 weeks into some truly exotic destination that is without war, but also no 1st world coziness all over the place. Buy just return flight, and let things happen. If you have more time, spend more :)
Second, I would suggest getting some different kinds of hobbies. Do a bunch of different kinds of things. One benefit of this is that if you know ahead of time you won't be good at them so it's easier to not hang your self worth on them. You'll also meet different kinds of people who aren't just CS people doing projects you can judge them on. Doing lots of different things also makes you a more interesting person.
Third, in terms of your programming; find more joy in the process and the trees instead of investing everything in the forest of The Project. If something turns out worse than you thought but you learned a lot, great.
That code you output? It's meaningless in the grand scheme of things. Cherish what makes you human, not what makes you a good worker.
Do things that you love outside of work. They will be just as meaningless in the grand scheme of things, but they will matter to you. Base your self estime on those.
Work is there for one reason and one reason only. To get you money to do the things you like and to give you the means to cherish the people you love.
Bake a cake, share it with someone. It's just as meaningless as outputting code, but you made two people happy. The code you make at work? The only thing it's making happy is the wallet of someone.
If you love to code above all else, do code. But try to only base your self estime on personal projects. Work is work, and your workplace shouldn't be tied to your self worth.
Isn't that just soul crushingly depressive. Surely everything you do is part of your character, how you work, what you work on, that's all part of who you are. You are not your work but I feel you've gone too far.
>Work is there for one reason and one reason only. To get you money to do the things you like and to give you the means to cherish the people you love. //
I disagree. Yes, you need to earn your keep, no that doesn't mean that work should be solely about the money (unless you're unfortunate enough to be unable to change your circumstances, eg through poverty).
If you work on an awesome project at work, do cherish it. Let it flow all over your ego. You did an awesome job? Be proud of it. But remember that what you are actually loving from that awesome project isn't the project itself, or the client, or your boss, or the money, or your time spent working.
From my point of view, an awesome project can be defined as a project that made you grow, that made you learn. This is what you love, and this is what you seek without even being aware of it.
Growing and learning is the basis of our human existence.
Sadly, most work you do will be repetitive. Boring. Harsh. Some time, it will even go badly. Learn what you can from those project, grow as much as you can, then move on. A bad project shouldn't even touch your sense of self worth.
The only moment you should feel less from your work is when you know that you didn't do your best. All else is simply work. Work may go bad, but if you did you best, worked your hardest, don't put it against yourself.
Your value as an individual human being is miles away from how your last project went. To me, they are barely related.
> Isn't that just soul crushingly depressive. Surely everything you do is part of your character, how you work, what you work on, that's all part of who you are.
For the code you output, you need to recognize and accept that almost everything you write won't run in production for very long, if at all. There are exceptions, but it's mostly true. So take pride in the production, and don't stake too much on the outcome.
I do agree that everything you do is a part of you. Just don't focus too much on one thing, or the wrong things.
This is crazy cool. People, technical and non-technical, generally love to hear these personal stories. They eat it up.
Working on things so they become popular isn't a good way to approach the process of working on projects. Working on things because you think it is cool IS.
If something you work on fails just know you have THAT much more knowledge about whatever you were doing than the next person now.
- Mentoring other people. Helping other people who are missing a skill that I have do something cool gives me that same kind of elation that I'd get from doing it myself. It doesn't necessarily take piles of time, but feeling useful is good for my feeling of self worth.
- Cooking/Working Out/Errands. It sounds silly, but getting a whole pile of stuff off of my to-do list, even if they're really easy, makes me really happy. Cooking is great because it's something I can do that people appreciate pretty much guaranteed, and which is a nice technical skill. Working out is great because I am both improving myself and learning new skills (for me, karate for the last 10+ years). Feeling like I'm making progress, clearing up loose ends, and doing things that are appreciated by others make me feel a higher sense of self worth.
In my estimation, the only way to break this cycle, to really exit this emotional roller-coaster that you are riding is to:
Let go of the results and focus on the quality of your effort.
For example, check yourself against this question:
"Am I giving 100% to the quality of my effort, in this moment?"
To elaborate: when you build your wall, are you focusing on the wall, or are you focusing on laying a single, individual brick, with the best quality, ability and focus that you can muster?
If you focus on the wall, then you are focusing on the end result. I recommend shifting your focus on laying each individual brick, which is a focus on effort, on process... a focus on execution.
2. "Basically I have pretty bad self esteem and I feel like I compensate for it by trying to do more and more projects."
Your self-worth should be based on your entire "package", if you will. It is complex, but it includes how you treat others, the light that you bring to the world, the light that you bring to your friendships and relationships, your helpfulness and respect toward your family, what you bring to your work... I'm fond of saying, "It's how you bring it." You want to be someone that "brings it." You want to be firing on all cylinders.
And so, this feeling of self-worth is tied to every single moment, not to results, which are ultimately ephemeral, and are only a small piece of the equation. Ultimately, results will fade, and may not always be what you expected anyway. But, if you focus on execution and process, you will be better-served to end the emotional roller-coaster of self-doubt, because you will know that you are bringing it, you will know that, "No matter what the results are, I delivered to the best of my ability. I strive to bring it in every moment, and I strive to better the process, and to serve and help those around me."
Judge yourself (and others) in this manner, and I think it will serve to change your life, to change your perspective.
Wishing you all the best.
Exactly.
Stephen Mitchell's translation of the Tao Te Ching (buy here: http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9780061142666-0; full text here: http://acc6.its.brooklyn.cuny.edu/~phalsall/texts/taote-v3.h...) is one of my favorite books. It has some things to say on this subject:
My one hesitation is that I think a lot of people get satisfied with trying their best within a crappy system. And sometimes you really need to be stubborn and say "no, this isn't good enough. We need to aim for a better end result.
It's not a healthy way to measure yourself, but it makes you desperate to try things that you wouldn't normally. And some of those things will work. And we all benefit from the discovery of a new "ceiling".
If you had that free choice, what would you choose? I assume a weighted aggregate of some kind including some of the above?
The truth is you can peg it to anything you choose, and you do that by prioritising these things in your day to day life. If you spend 1 day a month doing exercise, you're implicitly weighting that lowly in your mind. If you spend 10-12 hours a day working, that's how you weight it in your "mood index".
Just my opinion of course.
My strategy is to pay attention to the present, for example if I had a 'bad' day at work and feel stress at home, I might think about how nice the pjs feel on my skin, or "Trees, wtf those are awesome!"
You are free to exist outside of societal and moral constructs that you perceive (in this case excelling at work). Once you know the source of your dissatisfaction, simply stop feeding it.
People do all kinds of things like meditation to try to control their thinking, and these things are great and ultimately can be life-changing, but I don't think you have to go to great lengths to break the dysfunctional cycle you are in. Find a hobby. Talk about something else with your co-workers. Talk to other people at the company who don't program. Go to a meetup about something not related to programming, and talk about something other than your job for a while, or just watch and listen to other people. Go for a walk and look at the scenery. If thoughts about work come up, just notice them and come back to the present moment.
Dump the computer and travel outside the USA for a few months to a year, and you might catch a glimpse of life as it really is.
Life (in general, including professional life, BTW) is all about the connections you make with other people, not your kaggle/topcoder/etc ranking.
http://michaeldehaan.net/post/117078569362/the-philosophy-of...
At the code level, I'd suggest taking pride in the individual smaller bits as well as the larger bits, and side projects can help too if you really feel the need, but I also like the suggestion about enjoying other hobbies too, and then do really good work on working hours. You can do really good and robust technical work on some uninteresting projects (though working in a more interesting problem domain might be good for you), too - it's mostly about changing the way your mental evaluation function works.
But to be honest, if your worth is not based on your work, then what could it be based it on? Your looks? Your hair style?
I can't really think of anything more significant.
Difference you make? Part of your work ..
"Kind, funny, generous, intelligent" are all nice to have, but not enough to get the amount of respect from other people that can satisfy your self esteem .. (at least for me)
Discipline, self control, vision, direction .. all seem more important to me.
Of course many people can tell you how toxic this kind of mentality is, but it's not without benefits. Some people lack motivation and drive, but people with this mentality often have no shortage of that.
It's good you've identified this as something negative and are working to change that. That's step 1. It's not going to happen overnight but it is a long process. Also keep in mind that success means something different to everyone. You might think making 200k a year is somewhat successful, but someone else may be perfectly content and fulfilled volunteering to clean after the elderly/disabled. Having pride in your work is fine, but in the end, human connections have a MUCH more significant impact on your life. Just keep working on yourself (specifically: growth) and being someone people enjoy being around and you'll do great.