5 Tips to Stay Motivated Through Tough Development Projects
Some of the biggest challenges of working as a developer can be the length and independence involved in longer projects. When you find yourself in the middle of a real mammoth of a project or when you’re trying to find a coding solution for a difficult website problem, it can be easy to feel like you want to give up.
Here are five motivational tips that can help you keep moving towards your goals in different challenging work situations. Keep on keeping on!
- If you feel like a failure, you don’t have the full perspective yet.
It’s easy to feel like you’re stuck in the middle of a project that you feel like is going nowhere, or that you feel like the end project isn’t going to live up to your expectations, especially at the beginning of your career. It’s really easy to live solely in the present and feel crushed by a disappointment, but you don’t yet know how you’ll see this experience in 5 or 10 years from now.
For many successful people, failures and setbacks early in their careers were not only helpful but necessary to their success. You are absolutely allowed to be upset if things don’t work out how you had wanted, but also keep open to the fact that what you’re working on today might actually be the failure that propels you to success tomorrow.
2. People will notice the amount of effort that you put into your work, even if they’re not noticing right now.
Sometimes in team settings, it can be easy to feel like your work is being passed over or underappreciated. Especially in situations where you’re working with people that aren’t familiar with web development or how much work goes into it, you might not be getting the recognition you deserve for your hard work.
That being said, your hard work isn’t going to waste. Over time, whether it’s in this project or in the future, people will take notice of the your work, especially if you’re putting in consistent effort, keeping up with deadlines and making high quality stuff. If it isn’t this employer, it may be the next one.
3. Maintaining a healthy work-life balance isn’t lazy, it’s responsible.
If you’re stuck in the middle of a tough project and trying to power through it, you might find that you reach a point where you just can’t keep powering through. You might find yourself in a situation where you have to take a break, where you just can’t work any more on a project.
This isn’t something to be ashamed of! Taking a step back from a project for a little while can help you get some serious perspective, and help you move forward in a healthy way. You aren’t a machine, so don’t beat yourself up for not acting like one.
4. Your thoughts and opinions on a project are worth taking seriously.
In some teamwork or working with client situations, you might feel like people aren’t listening to your suggestions, or just passing over what you think is important. This is an unfortunate fact of life, but even if you find yourself getting ignored at meetings, please remember that this is not necessarily a reflection of your talent or worth.
Often, how someone treats you in a teamwork situation can say as much or more about them than it does about you. Is someone ignoring your ideas and only taking theirs seriously? They might have issues with paying attention that other people will pick up on. Are they rude or dismissive? They may be insecure. These things have nothing to do with you, and it’s not your job to internalize other people’s problems.
5. A bad week, bad month or bad project do not define you or your career.
Failure is a part of life, and a part of any long career. Sometimes, for a whole variety of different reasons, we can’t always commit our best efforts to the jobs that we work on. It feels really demoralizing, like you’ll never be able to make something worthwhile again, like you’ll always be a failure.
If you have that voice in your head during a rough patch in your learning or work, try your best to remember that it isn’t telling you the truth. The reality is that everyone has periods of better and worse work, and that being able to persist through times of adversity is what makes a person strong, not never having to face them.
Keep these affirmations in mind during any situation where you feel like giving up on your dream of having a career in web development. If you’ve got the skills, and you’re in the right place at the right time, your big break might be just around the corner!
