366 lines
17 KiB
Plaintext
366 lines
17 KiB
Plaintext
[1]Test Double The Test Double logo
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(BUTTON) Menu Menu An icon that displays an illustration of a website
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menu
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* [2]Home
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* [3]Agency
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* [4]Services
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* [5]Careers
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* [6]Blog
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* [7]Contact
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[8]Blog [9]Posts
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Only you can give meaning to your career
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How to mark moments that matter by planting a flag
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An icon of a clock Publish Date
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January 2, 2024
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An icon of a human figure Authors
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[10]Justin Searls
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I have, for whatever reason, live-blogged my career. Posting technical
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tips I’ve learned. Complaining about bugs I’ve uncovered. Elaborating
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on struggles my teams have faced. Mixed in with the substantive stuff
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has been plenty of vain ephemera that many would rightly describe as
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“over-sharing.” My brother sent me [11]this last week and I felt
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personally attacked:
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Everyone is fighting a battle you don’t know about. Except for me. I
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am complaining loudly about my battle. Everybody knows about it.
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So if you’ve borne witness to how much of my life I have spewed
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indiscriminately onto the Internet: first, I’m sorry. And second,
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please know that my vocation as a limelight enthusiast is emphatically
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not what I’m encouraging when I say this: I really wish more people
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took the time to reflect on the moments that mattered most in their
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careers and did more to memorialize them.
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Ask yourself: what experience in the Spring of 2019 had the greatest
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impact on how you go about your work today? Or 2017… what was 2017 all
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about? Think about the project you’re focused on right now. What will
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you remember about it a decade from now? In what ways are you reaching
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(or being stretched) beyond your comfort zone? If Walter Isaacson were
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writing a bullshit hagiography about your life instead of some
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[12]other schmuck, what would he have to say about you in your current
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chapter?
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How does it feel to be asked these questions?
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Early in my career, being asked those questions would have felt like a
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personal attack. But why? I had the tremendous privilege to have a job
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that paid me to use my mind instead of my hands, that afforded me the
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comfort of working behind a desk instead of out in a field, and that
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saw value in my continued growth instead of viewing me as a resource to
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be extracted and consumed. Those relative luxuries signaled that (by
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some definitions) I had “made it,” but nevertheless there I was:
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working overtime and shedding hair to deliver projects that meant
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nothing to me. As the years passed, I knew I was accomplishing
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something and growing somehow, but I found myself totally unable to
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articulate what or how.
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Not unrelatedly, I grew to hate answering “what do you do?” at parties.
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People tend to spend about a third of their lifespan at work, and
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that’s assuming they’re fortunate enough to retire at some point.
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That’s a big chunk of life to be rendered meaningless! So I decided to
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be someone whose work mattered—to myself, if no one else.
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Deciding to take ownership over the meaning of my work has
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unquestionably changed my life for the better. This post is the first
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time I’ve shared my process publicly, and my hope is that others will
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benefit from reading it. Given how dissatisfied most people seem to be
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with their careers, maybe that’s you.
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[13]Periodically plant a flag
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Despite the fact that I live in Florida and I’m typing this sentence
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poolside in shorts and a t-shirt in mid-December, I conceptualize time
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with the passage of seasons. There are seasons when my life demands a
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lot from me and my career is forced to take a back seat. There are
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seasons when my work is particularly engaging and my life falls into a
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pleasant-but-unremarkable routine. There are, of course, seasons when
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both are challenging simultaneously, but hopefully not too many.
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Whatever the case, I find myself pausing every three or four months and
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pondering, “what from the last season of my life is worth remembering?”
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It’s not like I have a reminder scheduled or anything. I don’t gather
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my colleagues and family for a standing meeting to review my
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achievements from the prior quarter. It’s more like an itch I’ve
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trained my brain to scratch whenever I go more than a few months
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without examining where my time has gone and what I have to show for
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it.
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I often refer to this regular act of reflection as “planting a flag” to
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symbolize whatever I want to stand out when I look back on a period of
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my life. In my case, these flags usually take the form of creative work
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like a blog post, a conference talk, or an open source library, but
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however you choose to imbue meaning into your experiences is entirely
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up to you. The most important thing is that you sit with them long
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enough to associate your memories of those experiences with why they
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mattered. When useful artifacts shake out of my process that can help
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others along in their own journeys, that’s a happy accident as far as
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I’m concerned.
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[14]How to plant a flag
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So, how does one actually assign meaning to a heretofore meaningless
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experience? This is the process I’ve settled into over the years to
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identify and commemorate my life’s watershed moments:
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1. Reflect: spend some unstructured time—maybe on a walk or with a
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notebook—and let your mind wander through the previous season of
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your life. A lesson you learned. Feedback that encouraged you. An
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interaction that left an impact. A moment that inspired you. I’m
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especially drawn to memories where emotions ran high—maybe I was
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really worried before a hard conversation or relieved after a
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colleague helped me solve a hard problem. If I draw a blank, I scan
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my e-mail and calendar to jog my memory. If, nothing stands out
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after all that, I don’t force it; I’ll give the exercise a rest and
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come back to it a few days later
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2. Collect: considering the experiences that came to mind when
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reflecting, which ones were distinct and new to you? Anything new
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you learned is, by definition, novel, and would obviously qualify.
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It’s naturally harder to identify familiar-seeming experiences as
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novel, but perhaps there was something unique and interesting
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hiding in the otherwise banal UI control you shipped last month.
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Why do this? Because by filtering out everything you’ve seen and
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done before, whatever flag you plant will stand taller, and you
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won’t risk mistaking this moment and its meaning for another. If
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this step filters everything out because nothing seems sufficiently
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novel, widen the aperture a bit—surely something interesting
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happened in the last few months. And, try as you might, if you go
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long enough with nothing to show for it, the meaning you’re
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searching for may be that it’s time to make a change
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3. Connect: for each of the experiences you’ve collected, try to
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understand how they might connect to future situations. A new tool
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or technique might empower you to do something you couldn’t
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accomplish otherwise. A painful mistake might warn your future self
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to avoid try a different approach next time. Since I can’t see the
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future, I imagine what impact each such insight might have had if
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applied to experiences from my past. “If I’d had learned this years
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ago, how would it have changed other events in my life?” If I can
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think of several moments in my life that would have played out
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differently, that’s as good of evidence as any that it has the
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potential to make an impact on you going forward
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4. Protect: memory is fleeting, and the work you do to identify
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moments that matter will quickly fade away if you don’t do
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something to mark the occasion. Memories thrive in novelty and
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wither in predictability, so the only wrong answer would be to
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enshrine every life lesson in the exact same way. Because creative
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endeavors necessarily result in the creation of something new,
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they’re a great way to clarify meaning and cement memories. My
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go-to creative outlets are essays, videos, and code, but yours
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might be songs, recipes, or [15]Etch A Sketch portraiture
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That’s it! Reflect, collect, connect, and protect.
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(See what I did there? How all the steps rhyme. That’s the kind of
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thing you’ll be able to pull off with a decade of practice doing this.)
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[16]This all happens in hindsight
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If you’ve ever had a job that encouraged you to make quarterly or
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annual goals for yourself, you may have noticed that a lot of those
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goals go unfinished. By the time performance reviews roll around,
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people often feel forced to justify why they didn’t achieve this or
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that goal. Regardless of the reason—maybe learning some skill was no
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longer relevant or the business’s strategic priorities shifted—the
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failure to meet a goal is often rooted in a failure to predict the
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future. I’m sure managers hope people will feel inspired and
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accountable to pursue their goals creatively, but in my experience they
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more often instill procrastination and anxiety. If there’s any
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creativity exhibited in annual goal rituals, it’s usually when people
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feel forced to weave a narrative that kinda-sorta connects a stated
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objective to whatever mostly-unrelated work they actually did.
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To wit, I’ve never accomplished anything I felt proud of by setting a
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goal. In fact, the surest way to ensure I don’t do something is to set
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a goal. When asked to set goals for myself, I’ve found that expressing
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the goal (as opposed to achieving it) becomes my overriding objective.
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The moment a manager approved my list of goals, I felt that I had
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completed the work asked of me and I would instantly lose all
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motivation to pursue the goals themselves.
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This explains why planting flags can succeed where goal-setting fails.
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If what I’m searching for is meaning in my work, setting a goal creates
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an expectation of where, when, and how my future self should find that
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meaning. High pressure. Focusing on doing my job well and reflecting on
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whatever I did in retrospect, however, has allowed me to sift through
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my experiences, identify patterns, and give meaning to them. Low
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pressure.
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Instead of studying something you think you might need in the future,
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wait for the need to arise and then immerse yourself in learning it.
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Instead of feeling stressed and distracted by the fear that you’ll run
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out of time before hitting an annual goal, do your work diligently and
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look forward to the next opportunity to reflect on the things you’ll
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achieve. Instead of reducing your existence at work into a series of
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boxes to check in a prescribed career plan, focus on being truly
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present and intentional at work and open to wherever that might lead
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you.
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[17]Who, me? Yes, you!
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There’s just one last thing to talk about: you, and why you don’t
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already do this.
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It’s not like this retrospective process of imbuing meaning into one’s
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work is particularly clever or insightful. I don’t think I’m a genius
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for arriving at the following three-step formula to having a deeply
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meaningful career and leaving a memorable legacy:
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1. Work really damn hard
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2. Occasionally gather highlights
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3. Commemorate them somehow
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But if it’s so obvious, why don’t more people do this?
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I wonder if it’s because everything above might seem like the exclusive
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domain of the Thoughtleader™ class. “I don’t have (or necessarily want)
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an audience to read my blog posts or watch me speak, so this ain’t for
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me!” you might be thinking.
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This line of thinking is reasonable, but it’s based on an assumption
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that doesn’t always hold.
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It’s true: if you believe the purpose of creating something borne out
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of your career experience is for other people to see and appreciate it,
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then maybe it makes no sense for you to bother. Not everyone craves
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attention. Building a following inevitably attracts a certain number of
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trolls. And if you build it, odds are people won’t come. I can’t
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guarantee anyone will run your code, read your blog, or watch your
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talk.
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But here’s the thing: I create these things for me and me alone. When a
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bunch of people read something I wrote or show up to one of my talks,
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do I find it encouraging and validating? Sure. But it’s not what drives
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me. I started creating things to punctuate my life’s sentences long
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before anybody took an interest in me and I wouldn’t stop even if
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everyone loses interest in me.
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What’s more, a lot of (ugh) content creators are the same way. In the
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course of my travels, I’ve gotten to meet many of my heroes, and while
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a few have disappointed me spectacularly (don’t meet your heroes!),
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I’ve found that a surprising number of them got into the
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thought-leading racket for the same selfish reason I did. They create
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stuff to scratch their own intrinsic creative itches and to give
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meaning to their careers. If other people’s attention factors in at
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all, it’s usually to justify the time they spend making stuff.
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[18]Justin Searls
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An icon of a human figure Status
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Double Agent
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An icon of a hash sign Code Name
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Agent 002
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An icon of a map marker Location
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Orlando, FL
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[19]Twitter [20]Mastodon [21]Github [22]LinkedIn [23]Website
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Related posts:
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[24]16 things you believe about software
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Over 6 years ago, I made up an unscientific personality quiz as a
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joke…and people can't help themselves—they're still filling it out!
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Here's what they think
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An icon of a clock Publish Date
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October 10, 2023
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An icon of a human figure Authors
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[25]Justin Searls
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An icon of a paper organzier Categories
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[26]Community
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[27]Shared values can make the difference for your engineering team
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Ever feel challenged in how to level up your engineering team's
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effectiveness? Apply values in day-to-day work. That's how you build
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great software and great teams. Here's how Test Double does that.
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An icon of a clock Publish Date
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February 20, 2023
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An icon of a human figure Authors
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[28]Cathy Colliver
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An icon of a paper organzier Categories
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[29]Leadership
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[30]Teams
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[31]Our Company
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Looking for developers? Work with people who care about what you care about.
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We level up teams striving to ship great code.
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[32]Let's talk
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[33]Home [34]Agency [35]Services [36]Careers [37]Blog [38]Contact
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[39]Mastodon [40]GitHub [41]LinkedIn [42]Twitter
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[43]614.349.4279
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[44]hello@testdouble.com
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[45]Privacy Policy
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Founded in Columbus, OH
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[46]Test Double
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References
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1. https://testdouble.com/
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2. https://testdouble.com/
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3. https://testdouble.com/agency
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4. https://testdouble.com/services
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5. https://testdouble.com/careers
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6. file:///
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7. https://testdouble.com/contact
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8. file:///
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9. file:///posts/
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10. file:///authors/justin-searls/
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11. https://x.com/TheAndrewNadeau/status/1647622603698257921
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12. https://www.amazon.com/Elon-Musk-Walter-Isaacson/dp/1982181281
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13. file:///var/folders/q9/qlz2w5251kzdfgn0np7z2s4c0000gn/T/L60667-6621TMP.html#periodically-plant-a-flag
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14. file:///var/folders/q9/qlz2w5251kzdfgn0np7z2s4c0000gn/T/L60667-6621TMP.html#how-to-plant-a-flag
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15. https://www.etsy.com/shop/PrincessEtch
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16. file:///var/folders/q9/qlz2w5251kzdfgn0np7z2s4c0000gn/T/L60667-6621TMP.html#this-all-happens-in-hindsight
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17. file:///var/folders/q9/qlz2w5251kzdfgn0np7z2s4c0000gn/T/L60667-6621TMP.html#who-me-yes-you
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18. file:///authors/justin-searls/
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19. https://twitter.com/searls
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20. https://mastodon.social/@searls
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21. https://github.com/searls
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22. https://linkedin.com/in/searls
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23. https://justin.searls.co/
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24. file:///posts/2023-10-10-16-things-you-believe-about-software/
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25. file:///authors/justin-searls/
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26. file:///categories/community
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27. file:///posts/2023-02-20-shared-values-make-the-difference/
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28. file:///authors/cathy-colliver/
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29. file:///categories/leadership
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30. file:///categories/teams
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31. file:///categories/our-company
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32. https://link.testdouble.com/blog-cta-sales
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33. https://testdouble.com/
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34. https://testdouble.com/agency
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35. https://testdouble.com/services
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36. https://testdouble.com/careers
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37. file:///
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38. https://testdouble.com/contact
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39. https://mastodon.social/@testdouble
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40. https://github.com/testdouble
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41. https://www.linkedin.com/company/testdouble
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42. https://twitter.com/testdouble
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43. tel:+16143494279
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44. mailto:hello@testdouble.com
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45. file://testdouble.com/privacy-policy
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46. file://testdouble.com/
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