Over my career I have recognised a trap that both myself and others have fallen into. That trap is overly comparing oneself to others.
When I started out in my career as a technologist I was lucky enough to work with a senior engineer that also tried to help us newbies improve. Now from any objective measure, this senior engineer was more capable than me in our roles but thinking about it, is that unexpected?
The rational part of me understood that, of course, they’ve been working in tech longer than I have, it makes sense that they are more effective. But it is so easy to tip into a mindset where I didn’t feel good enough, or smart enough, or that I’d never be that good.
If it is reasonable that someone that has been in technology for longer, or has more experience with a certain technology, and both you and that person are spending similar amounts of effort in improving and have similar opportunities for growth, how can you measure improvement during your career? That individual is always going to be ahead of you.
Think of two cars on a motorway, both travelling at 70mph. The car in front joined the motorway earlier and will therefore always be further up the road. The only strategies we can use to catch and overtake them is to hope they slow down or by you travelling faster.
If you hope for others around you to slow down so you can catch up, you’re likely always going to find someone that hasn’t done that. If you try to travel faster, you risk burning out. We need to find a way to sustainably improve. Careers are a marathon, not a sprint.
There is one person that is always available and also has a similar history and base set of experience. It’s you, but crucially, it’s you in the recent past. The only person you can compare yourself to and maintain a degree of psychological safety is yourself. But for you to measure improvement, you need to measure yourself against a previous iteration of yourself.
For me, a sensible period of time has become six months. Earlier on in your career, it may make sense to compare yourself against a more recent version of you, perhaps three months. As you develop in your career you will be constantly learning new technologies, new practices, and new ideas. One of the great things about a career in technology is that there is so much to learn and so many growth opportunities.
It is also worth recognising that not every phase of your life is the same. You won’t always have the same amount of energy or time. You might have a young family, you may suffer a period of ill health, or you may take on a caring role. For any number of reasons the amount of time you have to learn will not be constant throughout your career. So don’t expect the rate of improvement to be constant. Even travelling at 5mph gets you down the road.
Hopefully you can learn to be kinder to yourself in the future, while still getting that crucial “am I improving” feedback. Also, make a mental note that when you’re interacting with others, perhaps they have fallen into this trap themselves. Maybe you’re the car further up the road. Perhaps you can help them focus on self-comparison.