Fear of Being Bad
I wrote about how getting to great, you gotta keep doing things you are bad at in order to just being OK, then you can get to great.
Once you are great at something - you have to make a decision:
Now that you know how it feels to be Great at something, what do you want to feel being bad at?
This question only comes up when you hunger in some way - you want to improve in some way.
In programming, this manifests itself different ways:
- learning a programming language
- changing application frameworks
- changing an operating system
In growing from an individual contributor, these ways:
- assigning work
- motiving team members
- creating accountability
Consciously deciding to go from Great to Bad in order to restart is the hardest.
Why?
Because you were great at something before, now you’re bad.
What’s worse?
You know that there will be a lot of work to get from bad to just OK.
The first time, you didn’t know how to do any of this, so you had blind faith.
The second time, you have done it once and you know the hardship.
For me, this knowledge creates fear:
- in the domain I am great in, I am certain how to move forward.
- in the new domain I know I will have to struggle again, I am uncertain if the payoff for the change is greater than my current situation.
What’s even worse, if the new domain doesn’t overlap with the old domain, what will happen to the old domain’s skills?
Did I just waste my time building skills in a domain that won’t overlap with the new domain I intend to enter?