Discipline over Motivation in the Engineering Industry
My story building up the discipline and not relying on motivation!
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Thanks to our great sponsor DevStats. Let’s get back to this week’s thought.
Intro
No matter if you are an engineer or a manager, focusing on developing your discipline and not relying on your motivation is the key. We all have ups and downs, that’s something we can’t control, but we have full control over how we react to them.
We could potentially get rattled and stop progressing through our path, but we could continue and move forward regardless. The question is: which person will do better?
I think we all know the answer to that question. The person that does things consistently for a long time, will always do well.
Let’s get more into this next!
To be successful as an engineer or a manager, no need to be special
I really like what Omar Halabieh posted last week:
“To be successful at anything, the truth is you don’t have to be special. You just have to be what most people aren’t. Consistent, determined, and willing to work for it”
— Tom Brady
And if Tom Brady says that, who is considered one of the best American Football players of all time, then why wouldn’t me or you be able to succeed in the engineering industry or in any other industry!
This resonates strongly with me and I’ll tell you why.
I’ve always been driven to get better at anything I put my mind into
It started when I was growing up, video games were my thing. I remember playing and trying to get better and better. I’ve ended up at some point playing 6+ hours/day after school and that’s how I got better and better.
Of course, my parents were not quite happy with me doing that, but that’s how I ended up being one of the best players in the game that I was playing: Call of Duty.
And who would know that the very same mindset would help me to become a good engineer and a manager later.
I can find so many similarities, for example, if you want to be good at a video game, you need to:
spend countless hours practicing and getting better at it,
get to know the ins and outs of the mechanics of the game,
if it’s a multiplayer game, you need to be good at communicating and working together with your teammates to achieve good results.
All of these things mentioned above, perfectly fit the description of how to become a good engineer.
It takes time to understand all of the ins and outs of a certain programming language and framework.
Also, Software Development is very team-oriented. You must be good at communicating and working together with the team.
Personally, I believe that anyone who becomes good at a certain video game can become a good engineer. The mindset is the same.
I used the same mindset when I was progressing in my career as a self-taught engineer
I don’t consider myself to be anything special. My strength is that I am a good generalist and I can do a lot of things reasonably well + my drive to get better at anything I put my mind into. That is the same mindset I used for getting better at video games.
But at the same time, I know that a lot of people are better than me in a lot of things. So, that’s why I don’t think that you need to be born to be a good engineer, a manager or a leader, all you need is the determination to get better.
If you see that you can be better at something, you take action and work on it.
That’s how I got my first full-time role as an engineer, grew to senior engineer and later became a manager.
I wasn’t always motivated to keep learning or progressing, I had bad days and good days, but I stayed on track and persevered, which paid massive dividends over time.
You can read my full story of how I started my career, how I got my first full-time role and my top 3 learnings as a jr. engineer here: Starting my career as a junior engineer (paid article).
My first steps as a manager were tough, but I got better
It was quite demotivating when I first became a manager → I was leading a cross-functional team as a Team Lead. It was demotivating because I wasn’t immediately good at it and what made me a great engineer didn’t make me a great manager. I needed time in order to get better.
I made a lot of mistakes which didn’t help either. I was constantly asking myself why should I keep doing this. But, then I started to learn from my mistakes and things got a lot better.
I started to turn things around and I got a hang of the new position. The ultimate win was when I was offered an Engineering Manager position 6 months later.
I moved from leading 1 team to 3 teams and to 15+ direct and indirect reports. That’s when I knew I was on the right path and that management is right for me.
I wouldn’t know that if I hadn’t persevered and pushed through without feeling motivated.
You can read my my full story here: From IC to manager (paid article).