I hate this feeling of being pathetic at work

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This topic has 23 replies, 4 voices, and was last updated 6 years, 8 months ago by Anonymous.

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February 14, 2018 at 10:43 am #192453

Anonymous
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I graduated college last year and have been working at my company for a year now. It began well but I found myself constantly googling for answers(developer) and was really ashamed. When I got a new task to do I felt so overwhelmed by the lack of google answers and also due to a sense that I’m not as good as all the other tech savvy peers who’ve built apps and are on their way to be the next coding geniuses. This led to a decline in my productivity. I still was recognised for one feature I developed ye t I’ve had to hear about how slow I am and not up to the standard the industry expects me to be at for my experience. I want to improve. I don’t feel a passion towards coding when there is pressure to prove myself otherwise I enjoy it when I have a sense of the goal to achieve and also help from peers. Now I’m afraid to ask for help as I might seem too stupid and every task is going slow with me procrastinating. It’s like a sword hanging above my head. I feel like I’m stuck in a rut. I want to do well but have no motivation and am living in fear and shame. Also. I’m afraid I’ll lose my job and that I won’t find another one. I wish someone would help me with correcting this. Please help me.

February 14, 2018 at 11:05 am #192509

Anonymous
Guest

Dear gj:

You might lose your job. You might not find another job for a long time. Accept these possibilities best you can. These are not desirable possibilities to you, I understand that. But they are not disastrous, are they?

Trust your ability to survive less than favorable circumstances. You watched movies where people survive all kind of circumstances, the harshest and you were uplifted by their courage, resilience, weren’t you?

You can do it too, be courageous, resilient, overcome obstacles, survive and even thrive.

Before you lose your job (if you will lose it), you have to survive it, the job itself, for as long as you have it, day by day. You need courage now, resilience now. The obstacles in your way (comparable in the movies, let’s say, to crossing a desert or climbing the tallest mountain etc.) is that shame and fear you mentioned.

This is your challenge now. If you take it on deliberately, courageously, it will not be easy or quick and it will definitely take longer than a two hour movie, but … if you engage in the process, if you get curious and motivated to take on this journey, and if you persist, it will work out well for you.

anita

February 14, 2018 at 12:06 pm #192517

Mark
Participant

gj,

You might want to find a mentor and/or someone to coach you to answer the questions that you are too afraid to ask. Find someone you feel comfortable with and talk to them.

Good luck,
Mark

February 14, 2018 at 9:13 pm #192575

VJ
Participant

Hi gj,

What is the technology that you code on and find answers for?

Regards,

VJ

February 16, 2018 at 6:55 am #192801

Anonymous
Inactive

I am coding in java currently. But also some frameworks internal to the company.

February 16, 2018 at 6:56 am #192803

Anonymous
Inactive

I just feel no one has the time to listen. We are assigned a mentor but I guess they are busy too, so it feels like I should be knowing these answers.

February 16, 2018 at 7:08 am #192813

Anonymous
Inactive

Thank you for your kind words. I have read in a lot of places that you should believe in yourself and go for it. But what if I’m not a person who can succeed. I have been into spirituality on a surface level but I still don’t understand how I can believe in myself knowing how far behind I am from my peers, and accept my flaws. How do you do it? Know you are flawed and that these flaws are visible to anyone easily if they look. How do I overcome the shame of who I am and know I will make it. There people who never reach their goals but can say they tried. For me, failure means not just me going without an income, as you said I should be able to survive that. But it’s also my parents and a sibling that I support. I feel ashamed that being from a middle class family and having always known that my family needs me, time and again I fall behind. My mom says I have everything a person my age needs, but I feel no gratitude, all that I can lose in a second and the reason I’m so afraid is I know I’ll have no one to blame but myself. That I failed because I didn’t change even when I had to. The reality is I need to change now but I can’t bring myself to even begin. It always feels like the damage is done and I can’t improve. Honestly, where do I begin? It’s inherently a problem with who I am. That I can’t just be bold and code away. I simply procrastinate, I don’t know why – the fear of failure and losing my job?. I am sorry for this rant, I’ve had no one to talk to and that you responded despite not knowing is bringing all this out.

.]

February 16, 2018 at 7:37 am #192821

Anonymous
Guest

Dear gj:

You wrote that you are supporting your parents and a sibling. If you didn’t have that responsibility, life would be easier for you, much easier, wouldn’t it. With the thought that three people depend on you, the consequences of you not performing your work well enough and the consequences for possibly losing your job seem much greater than if you were only responsible for yourself.

When parents and society instill into a child the belief in being responsible for them, that belief is very strong. I want to introduce to you an idea: I believe that you are not responsible for your parents or for your sibling. I wish you believed it too. Your mind and your life would be better for it.

You wrote: “My mom says I have everything a person my age needs”. Clearly she is wrong. You need freedom from false responsibility. I wish she allowed you that freedom by not instilling in you this sense of responsibility.

Another point: you wrote referring to your flaws, “these flaws are visible to anyone easily if they look. How do I overcome the shame of who I am and know I will make it”- when I was full of shame I believed everyone else was perfect and they could all see how imperfect I was, how deeply and overwhelmingly flawed I was. When I saw other people looking at me I thought they were thinking about how flawed I was and I felt very ashamed. It was a painful way to live.

What I learned in the last few years is that no one is perfect and that almost everyone is concerned with how flawed they are, having their own voices in their own heads telling them that they are not good enough. Some of these people take breaks from those voices telling others that they are not good enough, but then they go back to telling themselves the same thing.

We only imagine we know what other people are thinking, imagining they are thinking what we are thinking. We only imagine other people are focused on us, on how flawed we are. In reality, most people, if not all, are focused on themselves most of the time.

Do post again, if you’d like, anytime.

anita

February 16, 2018 at 8:59 pm #192905

VJ
Participant

Hi gj,

Java is not one of the technologies to easily code in. And like you said nor there are going to be many resources on the web that give answers easily.
So what you are facing is legitimate. It is not that something is easy and still you cannot do it.

It is usually the fear of shame or embarrassment that causes more emotional pain than the actual problem itself. What if I tell you to drop that shame? Ok, let others see your flaws. What if you become so vulnerable about your flaws that nothing more is left to be shameful about? What is remaining to be shameful about when you are brutally shameful about all of your flaws? That is the time when you begin to be more creative. All of what you have mentioned about your definition of “failure” is imaginary. They are your mental constructs. They are mind movies. They are not true. What is the worst thing that will happen if you lose this job? The worst thing? Are you going to come on the streets begging for a living?
Have you ever seen a guy who cannot code in Java and has come down to the streets begging? Ok you said you can survive the income part. So you are more worried about supporting your parents and sibling. You said your family needs you. But you are always there for your family right! Where are you going? You mentioned you can survive the income if you lose your job, so then what is the problem and how are you not for you family? Even if the extreme happens – losing a job is really not a negative thing. There are several hundred companies that I have seen who are willing to recruit people who are laid off, on career gaps, and are willing to join immediately. It has become a normal thing now.

Don’t keep an outcome oriented approach. Focus more on the process itself. Do whatever it is best that you can do just for that day. Live in day-tight compartments. When you go to sleep ask yourself even if I may have not got the required outcome, have I at least given my best shot today? If the answer is yes that’s good. If the answer is no then give your even best the next day, but without focusing on the outcome and only on doing the actual process that ultimately leads to the outcome. Without being in the valley you cannot reach the mountain right? How can you even identify a mountain if there were no valleys. Its all part of the game of life.

“Don’t let a mad world tell you that success is anything other than a successful present moment.” – Eckhart Tolle

Focus more on just that tiny one thing that you have at your hand and your outcome will automatically be the desired one because the outcome is just the result of those tiny little moments/tasks.

Again if you say that how will I get a desired outcome if I am not efficiently able to do the process itself. This again means that your focus has drifted on the outcome.

If you feel no gratitude mentally why not from tonight before going to bed deliberately list out 5 things your are grateful about. It need not be from the bottom of your heart if you are not able to at first. Do this for the next 21 days. If you think you have reached a stage where you think you do not have anything now to write to be grateful about – How about being thankful to God for your eyes to be able to read this right now? Like them you will find so many things in the vastness of this Universe.

Like you I am also from a middle class family….in fact was in a lower middle class family and the only source of income was me. At the beginning of my career I was working on a subject which was extremely frustrating to me. No knowledge about how to do anything. Every minute of thought was about leaving the job. Nobody to help, nowhere to go. But gradually in due course of time I sailed through. Today its the same work I am doing since over a decade for multiple companies and everything is going ok. I sometimes feel thankful for that struggle. It is only the initial period that is difficult. This is a routine thing that happens to everyone in their own area of work. Don’t take it seriously. Give your best, whatever possible you can.

Your boat in the storm will struggle to move but it will not drown.

Warm Regards,

VJ

February 18, 2018 at 5:53 am #193099

Anonymous
Inactive

Thank you all for your advice. I’ll definitely post again here. The support is really heartwarming.

February 18, 2018 at 8:32 am #193163

Anonymous
Guest

You are welcome, gj. Anytime.

anita

February 28, 2018 at 9:23 am #195259

Anonymous
Inactive

Hi again… It’s been a good 10 days for me although not completely productive and smooth coding… I’m still happy in making progress with my coding. I’ve been taking it day by day – as VJ said –Focus more on the process itself – and reaching out to colleagues for help and I feel like I can definitely improve. But what I’ve noticed is that my boss has decided I am not a good coder. I saw it today in how he tries to imply that certain tasks may be difficult for me as “I am someone who goes up and down the hill”(his quote). I am not sure what to do… I know he will need live code in production for proof and not a speech and I hope I’m getting there but in the mean time his entire interaction with me is actually heartbreaking, also I’m afraid I may not be able to get out of the label he has for me. This makes my fear creep back. I feel dejected that there may be people in my team thinking I’m worthless… what anita said – We only imagine we know what other people are thinking, imagining they are thinking what we are thinking. We only imagine other people are focused on us, on how flawed we are. In reality, most people, if not all, are focused on themselves most of the time. – thank you for that – it gives me strength – but my main problem is about how I should deal with this impression of myself with others… my boss especially – as it may affect my career. I hope no one thinks I’m abusing tinybuddha for career advise. All this is more emotional for me, I feel like my soul has been sucked out each time something like this happens.I find it very hard to be calm and unaffected by other people. Not just what they think but how they act, and I think people here can help me deal with that.

gj

February 28, 2018 at 10:47 am #195273

Anonymous
Guest

Dear gj:

You are not abusing this website- your topic is valid and your emotions are just as valid as any other person, be the topic work or relationships or any other topic.

I am thinking, and correct me if I am wrong, that you are eager to please your boss, eager to have his good evaluation of your work and he knows it. It is probably clear as it is expressed by your facial expressions, your voice, and otherwise.

Problem is, instead of encouraging you, which is what you need so much, he criticizes you, pointing to imperfections, to going down that figurative hill. As if he can’t just say that you are going up the hill, he has to point to going down the hill.

This is very unfortunate. This method of management is common in parenting, and probably in the workplace as well. It is not an effective method but people use it nonetheless. And this brings me to this point: your boss gets my disapproval for his work, he is not doing a good job.

anita

February 28, 2018 at 7:51 pm #195347
VJ
Participant
Hi gj,

I see from your post that you are doing the “action” part right “by focusing more on the process”, “taking help from colleagues”, “I feel like I can definitely improve”, “I hope I’m getting there”. But not doing the “thinking” part right.

Just today this image is on Tinybuddha’s home page.

You are being too hard on yourself. Take it lightly.
Let me tell you the reality of life. You (me and everyone else) are going to face several people in our daily lives that are going to put us down, criticize us (either constructively or destructively), pull us down whenever we are progressing or doing something right.

But your job is not to get pulled into their storm. You have to keep life simple – by following the below.

Whenever someone criticizes you, take it as 2 options-
i.] If someone says something about you and if they are right:
Then stop thinking about what they said and start working towards it. For eg; If someone calls me a fat person. If will think for a while “Am I fat, is my weight not according to my body”. If that comes out to be true then I will say “Oh yes, they are right”. Then I have to start working on it by exercising, having a healthy diet, taking appropriate rest. etc.” This is for my own good. I will become a healthy person if I work on it. I will take their opinion as a feedback from life and do whatever it takes to bring about an improvement in my situation.

ii.] If someone says something about you and if they are NOT right:
Then how does it really matter? If I am a male and someone calls me a female do I really need to go ahead and prove that person that I am a male. They are wrong about me. They need to make themselves right. It is their headache. It is their problem.

Keep it simple. Don’t allow the mind to over complicate things. That way you will live a peaceful life no matter what happens around you.

Best wishes,

VJ
- This reply was modified 6 years, 8 months ago by VJ.
March 19, 2018 at 7:00 am #198067

Anonymous
Inactive

Hi anita and VJ,

I actually feel like I’ve made more progress in the last month than the whole previous year. And I wouldn’t be able to do this without your support. The last two weeks were hectic but I managed to meet a deadline and was even rewarded for it. Moving forward I’ve decided to let go of the fear of results and simply focus on getting the work done. Also, I’ve learnt to reach out to people outside my own team when I’m stuck on something technical and people are very helpful :). Thanks a lot! You guys do put a lot of effort into reading and answering questions and I’m truly grateful to you guys. I hope you are always well and happy 🙂
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