Programmer, What's your sense of security?

Connect with the disease

Recently with a colleague, he is very passionate about technology, is a real geek, not only that he has a strong executive power, and can persevere, from his body I see the next few years will grow up a technical cow. However, he has more serious anxiety disorder, such as: a few days without reading will be very tangled, usually he needs to spend time with the children and family, he will feel that he wasted valuable time, energy can not focus on the current do things. The more I contact colleagues, the more I have the pursuit of technology, it seems that the more this feeling, the feeling of unease should belong to a particular group of programmers a typical phenomenon, in fact, as a mentor I have been this feeling of the perennial troubled. He describes himself in this way:

I have been working for 4 years, but I have no deep understanding of the database at the bottom ,http protocol , concurrency , and distributed Systems , and I feel particularly frightened.

Do not discuss the work of 4 years of programmer should have what kind of performance, master more technology, depth, whether the field of view is open, let's look at him in the eyes of others:

• Be extremely passionate about technology
• It's very fast, it's been a few weeks. Ansible, Chef, Puppet
• Very wide reading, in addition to technology, involved in project management, finance, mind, society, etc.

Look at his book list (I've intercepted a list of the last year of one of them, and in fact he has read more books than planned), and he will have a deeper understanding of him:

• Think like a layman, practice as an expert: the way to success in Science (revised edition)
• Ancient and modern Mathematical Ideas (new Edition) (3 volumes) (Book 1th to 3rd)
• Thinking, fast and slow
• Data management: Insight into retail and ecommerce operations
• Explore Complexity
• Authoritative Guide to log management and analysis
• ...

A sense of security in psychology

Security is one of the most important concepts in the research of psychology, which is first seen in the theoretical study of Freudian psychoanalysis. Although a lot of research has been done at home and abroad, but there is no consensus on "security" so far, here are some definitions of security:

• An Lijuan summarizes the theory of security in psychoanalysis and humanistic psychology, and puts forward the definition of security as: Security is a premonition of a possible physical or psychological danger or risk, As well as the individual's strong sense of powerlessness in coping with the disposition, the main manifestation is the sense of certainty and the controllable feeling.

From the above definition, we can generally see that there are two main elements of security: negative external stimulation , positive internal energy . Simply put, when the internal energy is able to counteract negative external stimuli, people are safe because my "energy boundary" does not dissipate, whereas there is no sense of security, and no one is comfortable with the "energy boundary" being beaten. So the "energy boundary" is the so-called comfort zone, if it is safe to use green, then the comfort zone should be the center is dark green surrounding is a light green circle. As a matter of course, as its scope increases, so does the personal comfort zone.

Why are you anxious?

Why people are anxious, when something can stimulate the internal negative impact of the occurrence of things, people will be able to produce anxiety. This is a feeling of insecurity and typical performance. In the student age, we are anxious about the fear of failure, and we are anxious to be unable to do a job, and in the course of our children's education we are anxious to be afraid of not finding the right school, and we are anxious about the deterioration of our body when we are middle age. Because we are not sure we can handle this situation. Therefore, for some scenes, we will appear very calmly, "open-book examination, there is no worry about books in the Palm", "with their subordinates communication performance issues, Pro", "live in a more developed areas of education resources, children's education problem is not so obvious", "spend half an hour to do jogging every day, Very significant improvement in physical condition ".

Chipp Canly (Chip Conley) in his "How to control his emotions" is a good explanation of why anxiety:

anxiety = uncertainty * weak feeling

When it comes to controlling the emotions of anxious people, he shares a TED experience:

ted asked me to talk about the intangible assets of happiness, and how business and political leaders should begin to learn to measure and value the most meaningful things in life. It seems to be a ruthless irony, and my task is to go up to the pulpit and, as an expert, explore a subject that I find elusive at the time. Although I have claimed in the book of the pinnacle that I am going to do business in a self-practicing way, I have lost that magical appeal. "I'm trapped in a mindset that feels useless, and the only way to overcome this challenge is to write a speech about my life experience and practice it countless times." I think the pursuit of perfection is a good medicine to relieve anxiety. You may have had a similar encounter and thought that setting goals would make you comfortable. But the truth is, the pursuit of perfection only amplifies anxiety. Over the next few months, I have been painfully writing a happy-themed speech that was completely different from my normal preparation for a speech. My style is inclined to improvise and close to the listener, rather than mechanical and repetitive drills. And the closer I get to the TED conference, the more anxious I become. My speech was arranged on the last day of the meeting (just before the film director James Cameron). So when I arrived at the meeting, I had 5 days of hard times and had to spend it listening to other speakers, which made me more and more anxious. The

Therefore, the more uncertain or beyond their ability to do things, the more easily anxious mood, and the more so, from this anxiety is the less confidence to break free, the more insecure feeling is stronger.

Which programmers are more secure

Everyone has a comfortable area of their own, combined with internal comfort areas and external expectations, to illustrate some of the problems: as shown, the security programmer generally looks like this:

take the challenge and expand your comfort zone . We always have such people around, they are eager, face always hang confident smile, always the focus of various occasions, never meet the status quo, often have new challenges, always see their figure. If we look at them in a dynamic way, we will find that their comfort zones are always in a dynamic process-always expanding, or they are constantly get new skills. With the expansion of the comfort zone, personal pursuit of continuous realization, and the realization of personal pursuit, but also to promote their own expansion, what is more than the realization of their own goals more self-confidence and a sense of accomplishment more sufficient. Waiting will be the increase in social expectations, that is, your colleagues, leaders have recognized you, and raised their expectations for you, followed by a more challenging job, and another to expand their comfort zone or get new skills of the opportunity to happen.

quickly learn to quickly reduce the difference between social expectations and comfort zones . A programmer's very hard (KU) harm (BI) skill is the ability to learn. Besides being persecuted, this is a very practical, one of the housekeeping skills. Because the IT industry technology iteration speed is appalling, when a technology is not familiar with, the defect and improvement of the technology is already noisy hot, when you just to master a software development practice and complacent, the sudden xxx has died said, really let you die of heart have. There are countless examples, and we might as well take a look at ( an illustrative example ). ThoughtWorks to the staff there is a requirement, at least one programming language per year, in fact, is really not much, in fact, every year to learn far more than the requirements. Therefore, strong fast learning ability, can quickly armed themselves, competent new work, refreshing core competitiveness, and rapidly expand the comfort zone while reducing social expectations and its differences. Of course, not all new technologies are worth learning, but there are two points worth proposing: 1. The idea of new technology can expand their horizons and broaden their thinking; 2. The acquisition of new technologies can greatly enhance their learning ability, you will learn faster, the acceleration will remain until your brain reaches the peak of the physiological level.

strong executive force, reduce uncertainty . Its antonym is probably "procrastination syndrome", commonly known as lazy disease. An explanation is given in the encyclopedia:

Severe procrastination will negatively affect the physical and mental health of individuals, such as the emergence of strong remorse, guilt, constant self-denial, belittling, accompanied by anxiety disorders , depression and other psychological diseases, once this state, need to attract attention.

See here, believe that a lot of people have been recruited. Infinite procrastination cannot positively change what is about to happen, but it can greatly increase the uncertainty of the matter, and as things approach, this uncertainty in the heart of the anxiety response exponential growth, in turn, this sentiment and back-feeding delay, unless there is strong external forces involved, forcibly break the negative energy closed loop. So high-end, there is no practical example of that. Not only, but also very much, a lot of people probably have this experience, the end of the year before the closing date of the night, my dissertation overtime to write a summary, or in the evening before the speech, began to write PPT.

Get a sense of security Rule #1: Learn to be confident programmers

Of course it needs to be screened out, and some people may just look confident. But the three traits mentioned above should be a way to improve your sense of security. In fact, I am writing this advice is, very tangled. Where is the tangle? I feel insecure programmers are extremely "superficial" in two categories: lazy and others. According to very irresponsible statistics (see the people around), in fact, many times or because of laziness, if it is really lazy, it is hopeless.

Rule #2: Improving Security through anxiety formulas

To start a mathematical genius, these two things can help when someone or something is worrying:

• make a balance sheet that lists what you know and what you can influence , which can help you eliminate uncertainty, remove the mystique of things you don't know, and identify what you're facing. Because anxiety only lurks in the dark, people have a natural fear of what they do not know, just as a tasty crab is not something everyone dares to eat at the beginning. But it is also possible that the unknown in the dark may really be something you fear, but what does it matter? When you know that you have hidden a terrorist hunter in the dark-Tyrannosaurus rex, your opponent is clear, the next thing to consider is whether you have the ability to deal with it. Your anxieties are now all made up of powerlessness. When you categorize all the relevant factors into these four quadrants, it means that the plan that will help you eliminate it: You do not have to react to things that cannot be affected , because it is futile; you need to do two things to figure out what you don't know, Do something that can have a positive impact on the current problem.

• think of the most extreme results , reduce the sense of powerlessness, if the fastest results are also able to withstand, then there is nothing to lose, not to mention that the worst outcome is not the worst, the worst is caused by the worst result of the inner fear, anxiety and uneasy negative emotions . Of course, everyone's sense of powerlessness is different, because each person's comfort area is different, the greater the comfort area, the smaller the inability to feel. This is well understood, because the range of issues you can deal with in terms of probability, the degree of certainty will increase as the comfort zone increases. But confronting extreme outcomes is a pervasive approach. On the one hand, often when the worst happens, you are relieved, but a relaxed, can calmly face. This is one of the core ideas expressed in this formula, when the result occurs, the uncertainty is 0, the mood of anxiety has been released, you will of course be more relaxed than ever, this is why people to let ta crazy things happen, but can be calm, the situation is not chaotic. On the other hand, think of the most extreme results that will help you assess the cost of failure, many times people are frightened by themselves or others, once the results of the assessment is not so unacceptable, naturally there is no need to fear the fear of the past.

Rule #3: Match external expectations and personal capabilities

The left image is a Yerkes-Dodson law chart that contains three elements: efficiency, motivation, and task ease. In general, the stronger the motivation, the higher the enthusiasm of the work, the better the potential to play, and the greater the efficiency achieved; on the contrary, the lower the strength of motivation, the worse the efficiency. As a result, efficiency increases with the increase of motivation. However, psychologists Yerkes and Dodson's study confirmed that the motivation intensity and efficiency is not linear relationship, but inverted U-shaped curve relationship. The concrete embodiment in: When the motive is in the suitable intensity, the work efficiency is the best; when the motive strength is too low, the lack of enthusiasm of participating activities, the efficiency can not be improved; When the motive strength exceeds the peak, the work efficiency decreases with the intensity, because the strong motive causes the individual to be in the psychological state of excessive anxiety and tension The normal activities of mental processes such as thinking.

Therefore, what you need to do is to let others better understand themselves, if you think you are very strong but do not let others know, then the expectations of others will be less than you expect, the work you will do is unlikely to match the skills you have mastered, of course, in the face of such a job, most people are not fresh, excited, The feeling of high-spirited, big chicken blood. On the other hand, if you give other people the feeling that it is very good x, the result may be that you face more than your skills in a lot of tasks, which will increase your anxiety, reduce your efficiency, affect the reputation of the individual.

Rule #4: Anxiety, anxiety is not so anxious.。

Said so much, feeling anxious is a kind of to completely eliminate, even if can not eliminate also is called try to avoid mood, but everything is not absolute, completely without anxiety this mood is also undesirable, programmer need to expand their comfort zone in time, and anxiety also has its positive energy side.

Stepping out of the comfort zone increases the level of anxiety, resulting in a stress response, which results in increased focus on the job. In this region is called the Best Performance Area -in this region, the performance of people will be improved, and their skills will be optimized. But Robert Jeckis (1907) reported that "anxiety can improve performance, but after a certain optimal incentive, the performance begins to deteriorate" and if a person leaves the best performing area, he will enter a dangerous area, Increased anxiety or reduced comfort in hazardous areas can lead to a rapid deterioration in performance.

So in performance management, managers, or coaches, should let people into the best performance areas, and maintain a sufficient amount of time to achieve better performance, improve their skills, and to put these performance and skills fixed. Similarly, changing the level of anxiety in a goal setting changes the performance of the job.

Programmer, What's your sense of security?