Playing where's Wally with your motivation and desire

This may have something to do with Wally, who actually knows... you will, when you read it

I really miss the Where's Wally books... I did a quick google search and apparently it is called Where's Waldo in the States and Canada, which is why I've been so confused recently as to what it was called... slightly off topic, well, kind of. Where's Wally was always about trying to find Wally in amongst a crowd of look-a-likes and randoms. A feeling of frustration and resent towards what you were doing would come from not being able to locate Wally. The nice thing is, you could take a break, come back, find him, and it would be an amazing feeling, and you'd carry on for another 15mins till you finish the book.

The sense of this post is less about Where's Wally and more about the frustration of losing motivation and desire, taking a break and coming back and re finding it, something that I have experienced as a developer. 

Side note - I told you in the first post, my writing ability is bad, I'm not a blogger (I guess now I am), I've never really studied or have done anything that is public writing like, but I warned you about this in my first post.

So when I started as a developer, I started as a bright eyed junior who was really excited, and nervous as all hell, but mostly excited. I was joining the web industry, I was doing what I spent the last 4years studying to do, which made me really happy. The joy and passion I had was also the reason I never said no and was given ultimatums that were less than ideal. 

So I started working long hours, which was alright to begin with, I'd just finished being a student, long hours were a norm really. Then it got to wk4 and I realised that I was starting to lose motivation to do these long hours, I started losing desire to be the developer that I had been really excited to be only 2months before that. It sucked, I started feeling ill, my desire to be at work was faltering, I then started to think that I didn't actually want to be a developer. 

This was a horrible feeling as I had been so excited to become a developer and join the industry. I started second guessing a lot of things, my ability, the reason I joined, whether or not I would make it in the industry. Fortunately, this was close to Christmas, and because I'd done one side of the ultimatum that meant I would be able to have time off over Christmas, I took my two and a half weeks off, I went home to Taupo, I erased anything about being a web developer for that period and it was the best decision I have ever made. 

I completely separated myself from anything developer related, I hung out with Highschool friends, I lazed on the lake front (For those who haven't been, it is a nice place to holiday, definitely suggest it for a small amount of time), I went to a concert in Auckland, I did a little bit of travelling. It was bliss, I was very happy, I was relaxed, it was amazing. I hadn't written a line of code in two and a half weeks. 

Being away from writing code for this period, I got excited that I was heading back to work, back to writing code. I had re-found the excitement, the motivation, that I had been longing before the time off.

After I got back, it started to happen again, but it took a few months. Admittedly, I started losing passion again for other reasons, but it started to happen. This is when I decided I needed a change of scenery, so I decided I needed to change my place of work. 

At DNA, where I am currently working, there was / is (as I write this, I can not remember whether it is or isn't still there) a quote on the wall that read "Change is as good as a break" ...

Side note... again - I think this is what the quote is, I could be wrong, but it works / worked for me. 

This is one of the more accurate things I have read in regards to losing motivation / desire, unfortunately I didn't realise this to start off with. I didn't realise that stepping back from what I was doing, having a gap, making a change to my norm, would be so good for me. It helped immensely. 

Sometimes you just need to take a chance. I took a chance, and have found myself in a really good position. This may not be the most useful thing for you, but it was very useful for me! If this helps, I am happy to hear it, if it is something you can point someone else in the direction of to help them out, brilliant! 

Enjoy,

~ Jacob