Article by: Ted Kolovos (www.CSharpUniversity.com)

Welcome!  Relax and enjoy yourself as you read this.  May I have your full attention please?

Did you read Part 1 of this series?  If not, find it at /2010/01/14/3-deadly-career-mistakes-programmers-make-and-how-to-avoid-them-part-1/.

Introduction
Ever wonder why some programmers always seem to get better?  They get the jobs they like.  They become experts.  They develop on fun, rewarding projects.  They make good money.  They fit the definition of success.  Let’s call this the Happy Zone.

Yet other programmers always seem to make little progress.  For some reason the right opportunities are never there.  They feel frustrated about the projects they develop on.  Perhaps they’re not happy about the money they’re making.  Let’s call this the Unhappy Zone.

So, why does this happen?  Why do these vast disparities exist?  Are you in either one of those categories right now?  I’ve been in both of them during the course of my programming career and the Happy Zone is MUCH, MUCH better!

In this series of articles, we’re taking an interesting look at 3 of the common career mistakes programmers make that keep them in the Unhappy Zone.  By looking at these and evaluating your own situation, you will be one step closer to the Happy Zone.  Perhaps if you are already in the Happy Zone, my hopes are that you can get to the Super Happy Zone:)

In the last article (part 1) we talked a bit about motivation and why that’s important to your programming career.  I also gave you a simple exercise to get you thinking about your goals (what you want) and why you want them (the rewards of achieving your goals).  Did you do the practice exercise yet?  Try it.  It just takes a few seconds and it will get you thinking.  I promised to give you some mental strategies to generate tons of motivation.  So here’s a couple of them that you can try too.

Programming Career Motivation Power Strategy 1
The first strategy that I personally live by is: Seek Projects and Opportunities That Are Personally Fun and Gratifying.  Avoid projects or assignments that are boring or without personal satisfaction.  Think about this for a second.  Have you ever taken a job or agreed to work on a project that you knew you probably wouldn’t like?  Perhaps the technology wasn’t something you wanted to learn?  Or it wasn’t the type of application that you wanted to develop on?

The reason that it’s really important to seek programming projects that are fun for YOU is because you need motivation in order to achieve your goals.  If you work on a programming project that you don’t like, you will find it hard to get motivated because of the negative emotions caused by the project.  It’s just natural for people to work hard on things that they like and avoid things that they don’t like (it’s just how our brains are wired).  Think about it.  Do you normally spend your day doing lots of things that you like to do or lots of things that you don’t like to do?

There are many ways that you can practically apply this strategy:

• Look for jobs that you are really interested in (focus on the ones that seem the most interesting).
• Take classes for programming topics that interest you (preferably classed that require you to code).
• Specialize in a niche that you really love.  My specialty is web programming because I love the Internet and web applications.  I became much more motivated to work harder and I achieved much more when I transitioned from desktop programming to web programming many years ago.  Say for example that you love mobile applications.  You might want to consider specializing in developing mobils apps for the iPhone or BlackBerry.  What you do love?

Programming Career Motivation Power Strategy 2
The second strategy is to: Challenge Yourself With Your Own Difficult Extra-Curriculur Programming Projects.  Give yourself a challenge outside of work or school.  Think of a programming technique or technology that you always wanted to learn and then create a project that gets you some experience working with the technique.  Make the project difficult.  Preferably you should make it something that is a little above your experience level.  This is so that you can grow as a programmer.

Challenges are good!  Challenges are necessary!  You need challenges to grow and thrive as a programmer.  The desire to complete a difficult challenge is a powerful emotion!

Conclusion and What’s Next
Do you have a desire to improve any part of your programming career?  Then try some of this tips that I’ve given you!  Remember, you are the best person to motivate yourself.

Stay tuned for part 3 where I’m going to reveal the Second Career Mistake Programmers Make and How To Avoid It.

In the meantime, do you seek projects that are fun?  Do you challenge yourself outside of your work or school environment?  What are the things that you wanted to learn but never did?  Quickly leave a comment.  I’d love to hear from you!

Article by: Ted Kolovos (www.CSharpUniversity.com)

Welcome!  Relax and enjoy yourself as you read this.  May I have your full attention please?

Ever wonder why some programmers always seem to get better?  They get the jobs they like.  They become experts.  They develop on fun, rewarding projects.  They make good money.  They fit the definition of success.  Let’s call this the Happy Zone.

Yet other programmers always seem to make little progress.  For some reason the right opportunities are never there.  They feel frustrated about the projects they develop on.  Perhaps they’re not happy about the money they’re making.  Let’s call this the Unhappy Zone.

So, why does this happen?  Why do these vast disparities exist?  Are you in either one of those categories right now?  I’ve been in both of them during the course of my programming career and the Happy Zone is MUCH, MUCH better!

In this series of articles, we’re going to take an interesting look at 3 of the common career mistakes programmers make that keep them in the Unhappy Zone.  By looking at these and evaluating your own situation, you will be one step closer to the Happy Zone.  Perhaps if you are already in the Happy Zone, my hopes are that you can get to the Super Happy Zone:)

This article is devoted to the first common career mistake programmers make: They Do Not Motivate Themselves!

Motivation is so important in programming because you have to spend many hours learning, coding, testing, etc.  Let’s face it; if you plan to get good at programming and have a rewarding career, you need motivation.

Let’s chat about motivation in three parts:
1) What motivation actually is.
2) Why motivation is important and why you must do it yourself.
3) How to motivate yourself!

What’s Motivation?
So what is motivation?  If you look-up the word “motivate” you will see synonyms like “induce”, “move” and “cause”.  You can think of motivation as a force that causes you to take action.

Do you have a desire to improve any part of your programming career?  Then you probably already have some motivation.  Depending on what it is that you want to improve, you may have a little motivation, or a lot.

Why is motivation important?
Motivation is critical to your success because it’s what induces you to take action and achieve your goals.  There are many potential rewards that could motivate you to work towards your goals:

• For Financial Gain
• To Feel a Sense of Achievement
• Desire To Improve Something About Yourself
• Relieve Frustration
• Desire To Do Something New or Work With New People
• Many others…

The more motivated you are, the more goals you will achieve.

Less Motivation = Less Chance of Achieving Goals
More Motivation = Higher Chance of Achieving Goals

Why do you have to motivate yourself?
Because if you sit around waiting for someone to inspire you or tell you what you need to do in order to live your programming dreams, what do you think will happen?  That’s right.  Probably nothing.

Successful programmers are able to motivate themselves!  They don’t need anybody to tell them what needs to be done.  This is VERY important to understand.  Others may inspire you and you may even have mentors, but ultimately the best person to motivate yourself is you.  Your future is controlled by you.

How can you motivate yourself?
The key to generating motivation in your programming career is by MANIPULATING YOUR EMOTIONS!  That’s right.  Sound kinda weird?  I know.  It’s actually pretty simple and you don’t need to have a degree in psychology either (although if you do it doesn’t hurt).

The way this works is like this: if you aim for goals that give you the rewards you want, you will conjure up positive emotions.  The more powerful and positive your emotions are, the more motivation you will have.  Strong emotions are great motivators. There are practical mental strategies and exercises that you can use to tweak your emotions in a positive way.

Here’s an easy question and answer technique that’s a great first step motivational exercise.  Ask yourself these two questions:

What is it that you want?  Think of a goal that you desire in your programming career.  Let’s pretend for demonstration purposes that your goal is to “become an ASP.NET programming consultant and work on a large Internet web application”.

Why do you want it?  Asking yourself “why” helps you identify your reasons for making the goal become a reality.  Here are some example reasons for demonstration that someone might want to be a programmer on a large Internet application:

• It can be very rewarding to know that thousands of people are using your software application every day.
• You can really feel a sense of achievement after completing a challenging large scale project.
• It can be very exciting to have many new consulting opportunities to choose from because companies are always looking for Web programmers that have large scale application experience.
• With the money from consulting, you can afford that sports car that you’ve been dreaming about.  It’s going to be so much fun driving it.

Did you notice something that all of these example reasons have in common with each other?  They all contain words that invoke positive emotions: “rewarding”, “sense of achievement”, “exciting”, “new opportunities” and “so much fun”.

Repeat this simple motivational exercise on your own.  You can use it anytime you are creating new goals.  Remember to include positive and compelling emotions in your reasons when you answer “why do you want it?”.  This will give your brain more energy to focus on fulfilling your goals.  You can start the process of generating motivation this way and you can create a positive image in your mind of your future.

Stay tuned for part 2 where I’m going to give you some secret mental strategies to generate tons of motivation and hopefully keep inspiring you.

In the meantime, what motivates you?  What are the things that you want in your programming career?  Have you ever made the mistake of not motivating yourself?  Quickly leave a comment.  I’d love to hear from you!