DarqByte

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about things that motivate me. Just about anything, really. Any arena or motivating factor.

For example, sadly, money motivates me a lot in my work. It’s not the sole reason I work, no. I really do enjoy my job, the systems I work on and my coworkers. So there are other motivating factors there.

Right now, my desire to look better and be in better shape are the two primary motivating factors for why I’m working out more often and am on Weight Watchers. It doesn’t hurt that Laura‘s doing it too.

This line of thinking has gotten me to comparing myself with other people. There are times when I feel dissatisfied with where I’m at in my career and life in general. Right now I’m at a relatively high point. I’m very happily married, we have our own house, I’ve got good friends and there really isn’t a lot of conflict in my life. Really, the top item on my list of things to improve upon is my job. I want to be a lead developer. I’m not.

So I’ll use the lead developer desire as a starting point here. Since I want to be one, I end up comparing myself with some of the other leads here. I ask “Do I know as much as them? What are my skills in comparison?” When I ask those questions, I know I match up. I know I have good programming skills. Then I get to things that are more related to a lead position, such as “Can I lead well? Can I delegate? Will I properly fulfill the requirements of such a position?” I think I can. I’m fairly certain I can. But I won’t know unless given the chance.

I also end up comparing myself to my programmer friends a lot, such as Andrew and Steven. I don’t know a whole lot about Andrew from a programming perspective, but I do with Steven. His drive to learn is simply amazing. I wish I had it. I think I did one day, but I don’t have near that kind of drive any more. There are too many things to do in the day and ways I like to spend my time to be able to truly learn how he does.

I end up feeling like I come up short when I compare myself to Steven. He knows a lot more languages than I do, for starters. I’m mostly a PHP expert. He works in C# for a living and also codes in other languages personally, and has prior experience with languages that he’s not currently using. So does this turn into a motivating factor for me?

Oddly enough, no. There was a time when I was highly competitive. To an extent, I still am, just in other areas. Areas I know I have a chance in, I guess. But just because I feel inferior to someone in some way doesn’t mean I’m going to up and strive to be better than them. That’s not the right motivation. Although I do have my competitive drive to thank for getting me into programming in the first place. That, and a former friend.

All of this ties in nicely to a personality test I took yesterday. Laura also took one too, you should go read hers (via her blog post). I am an ESFJ personality. Before reading further in my blog here, you really should go read it first… Done? Good.

At first, when I was reading a different description of ESFJ, I wasn’t sure how fitting it was for me. But when I read the one I just linked to, it all clicked. That is me in a nutshell. It explains so much about me it’s totally crazy. The parts where I like to be liked, like to control my environment, like structure… Ohh yeah. That’s me.

I can get theoretical sometimes, but not very often, and I do sometimes question the rules when I disagree with them… I’ll usually end up following them, though. After reading my personality profile, a lot of my motivating factors and lack of motivation in some areas are completely understandable.

Just some interesting stuff. Right now, I’m motivated by hunger. Must eat my yogurt!