Loss of Motivation in a Professional Environment
polycounter lvl 15
A subject I have been curious about for a while is how do Professionals deal with any sort of loss of motivation in the work place? I see a ton of "Loss of Motivation/How to Motivate Yourself" threads, but its always from or for students, people trying to break into the industry or people trying to do 3d in there free time. But I am curious as to what do PROFESSIONALS do to keep themselves motivated throughout the years or during a difficult time at work. IE: Full time studio and full time freelance artists.
Advice given to people trying to break into the industry doesn't apply to professionals/freelancers for the most part. The majority of advice in those threads is all about just keep pushing yourself till one day you break in and nail that job. How you need to just work on projects and fail to get better. Or that if you are struggling on a project maybe try a different subject matter for a while and then return with fresh eyes.
The problem is I don't feel this can be done in a professional environment. You cant just work on something else and "get away" from what your working on as its your job and your being paid for it. You are for the most part, stuck in a sense. You are not struggling to get into the industry as you are already in it but for any number of reasons, could lose the desire to work on a given project you once had.
There are a ton of reasons people can lose motivation/desire to work on there current project at work...
Its not all sunshine and rainbows once you get into the industry, there are a lot of issues you have to deal with. And not all of these things a permanent problems, sometimes they can be issues you are dealing with for a couple of months but know sooner or later they will be fixed. But there still issues you have to deal with.
So I am curious what do other professional full time studio employees and professional freelance artists do when there level gets cut after months of work and you feel like you wasted all your time, or when your client chooses the lamest iteration of the characters you were creating and you are super disinterested in what you have to change, or your entire project is being restarted from the ground up and you know you can never share the work you have done.
What do you do when you lose motivation/desire to work on your current project and how do you rebound from that to get excited again?
-Anthony
Advice given to people trying to break into the industry doesn't apply to professionals/freelancers for the most part. The majority of advice in those threads is all about just keep pushing yourself till one day you break in and nail that job. How you need to just work on projects and fail to get better. Or that if you are struggling on a project maybe try a different subject matter for a while and then return with fresh eyes.
The problem is I don't feel this can be done in a professional environment. You cant just work on something else and "get away" from what your working on as its your job and your being paid for it. You are for the most part, stuck in a sense. You are not struggling to get into the industry as you are already in it but for any number of reasons, could lose the desire to work on a given project you once had.
There are a ton of reasons people can lose motivation/desire to work on there current project at work...
- Extended crunch.
- Levels being cut.
- Change in direction of project.
- Constant client changes.
- Clients not paying on time.
- No clear direction of the project.
- Turnover of personnel.
- Miss-management of leadership.
- Inexperienced people you are the lead of.
- Projects being terminated.
- A project you are just uninterested in.
- Art style.
- Coworker issues.
Its not all sunshine and rainbows once you get into the industry, there are a lot of issues you have to deal with. And not all of these things a permanent problems, sometimes they can be issues you are dealing with for a couple of months but know sooner or later they will be fixed. But there still issues you have to deal with.
So I am curious what do other professional full time studio employees and professional freelance artists do when there level gets cut after months of work and you feel like you wasted all your time, or when your client chooses the lamest iteration of the characters you were creating and you are super disinterested in what you have to change, or your entire project is being restarted from the ground up and you know you can never share the work you have done.
What do you do when you lose motivation/desire to work on your current project and how do you rebound from that to get excited again?
-Anthony
Replies
That's a bit extreme. But you just have to go with the flow. Be flexible, remember it's a gig. There are a lot worse things you could be doing.
More of a measured step away from what's easy. ... Then keep walking, i suppose
I think, in a studio environment especially, communication trumps everything(apart from one thing but I'll mention it later). If you're not fulfilled - get a room with your supervisor and speak up. It's their direct responsibility to try and help you. Nobody want to see you underperforming or depressed. If you're an asset to the company they'll try to be accommodating and maybe put you on a different task to recharge your batteries. Like a stab at tech art or concept art or characters - whatever you show aptitude or interest for.
Or they'll lay down a road map for you so you know where you're going with all this work career wise - that can be motivating for some.
If you can't see anything that you could do inside your studio that would be motivating then it might be time to consider trying something else.
Unlike being an amateur - if you're doing a good job in a field you're passionate about and you still feel down then it's probably the employers fault at this point.
And the one thing sometimes that you can't help is working with assholes. I wish I was kidding but I' not
That is unfortunate but us as artists don't really have that much control over the environments we're in apart from choosing a new environment if we dissatisfied with the old one.
But I would definitely try and talk to as much people as possible at the company, because just knowing that everyone else, especially "management", sees the problems you see and will try to make sure they don't happen again, can be enough to reignite your faith in what you're doing there.
At the end of the day it also helps to remember that it's just a "job" no matter how much we're invested into it. Getting some distance and not giving your 150% every day for a while might also be an option.
I hope this is at least tiny bit helpful. just my 2 cents.
cheers
Great thread topic! It's not uncommon for people to abandoned the games industry because their motivation is gone. It's also not something a lot of people talk about while working. Don't want others to get the impression you have lost your passion.
The other ting I do is work on personal art during my lunch break (my job allows this although some places may not be, maybe?) as well as at night at home. I typically work on realistic milsim stuff at work but I really love fantasy art. So, at home I'll work on ZBrush stuff for Dota2, hand paint textures, make some WoW fan art, etc. It keeps my mind fresh and I'll usually learn cool stuff I can apply at work.
be grateful for what you got, and for the talent and the mind that you have, that permits you to do a "fun" job.
if your job is too demanding , making you work instead of live, look for something more laid back. i left TV and commercials behind me, worked in the multimedia dept of shipping companies and construction companies making presentations and product design and never looked back.
Also, I laughed my arse off when I found out that the game I worked on, "Band Stars" was rebranded recently to "Band Stars GLEE"...AFTER release. Just weird.
Learn to enjoy the process and the moment to moment of your job. As someone said above, it's about perspective - there are LOTS of worse jobs out there and LOTS of worse things that could happen to you than your company decided not to use your prop.
plenty of the reasons listed above however point to the workplace being the issue, not so much the game. if you have issues with the inside workings of the studio or you yourself are being dragged into some mess as part of management duties you may have then retreating to just-making-art is not going to help.
what is sad is that this has become known as a "professional" Environment when objectively miss management poor direction, termination and inexperience is anything but.
I think it can be easy to lose motivation in a unprofessional professional environment.
this sort of a job just put in the hours while you look for another.
At Turbine, I had multiple bouts of motivation issues. First, it's the "I could be flipping burgers" mentality. Next was trying to really take ownership of certain aspects of asset creation as best as I could. Sometimes that helped, sometimes I had too much invested and critiques hurt my dumb little self. I acknowledge that was my bad. In the end I just settled into a sort of state where I was more tranquil and that helped the most for the last two months I was there.
Freelance is easy-Oh Shit I need money! But seriously, I like to think I'm trying to build a business, and that really gets a fire under my ass and pushes me to build and be better. And on occasion I'll partake in some beer or scotch. I have 2 jobs at the moment.
Doesn't mean to stop working and busting ass though!
But as things have been said here, if you have bad management or that someone that is just an asshole then you are gonna face a rock wall at some point.
Creativity as a form of motivation will only take you so far imo. Just like you can't be creative 100% of the time all the time haha. So just letting things roll for a moment. Maybe take a few days to take it easy and focus your attention to things you regularly don't pay attention to. I am a big believer of leaving work at work. Enjoy the family, go out for walks, enjoy nature, go eat some icecream. I mean, life is more than just work and sometimes as a workaholic its hard for me to detach myself from the troubles of work. I guess thats why its nice to have a partner you look forward to see after work, or plan things to do, or one that reminds you that you need to enjoy the things outside your work schedule. Go on trips, go on an adventure. Always read a good book... talk to people, visit family.. i mean.. the list is never ending.
As far as the whole its a gig, "you could be flipping burgers" attitude, i think this is coming from a very muddy perspective. i think its important for people to just express their feelings. I find this forum shares some of those feelings, and people can resonate and give advice or just a shoulder to lean on, and thats what is all about. A community where you feel important and welcome. If we all think of work as... meh.. its just the job... then where does the passion go? where does our growth as artists end? We'll end up as a cog making door knobs and generic art and get complacent. Ugh.. there is nothing worse than being complacent or complacent people at work, and i just think that "hey be grateful you are not cleaning bathrooms" is good enough for us to get over a slump or get motivated. At the end of the day.. comparing oneself to others is not a permanent solution.. i mean.. there are people that enjoy their jobs just as much as we do, and it would be pretty sad to hear.. hey! at least you are not an artist at a game studio. So why promote that way of thinking?
Some really good advice up there on communication. As a lead i try to be close to people and have them share their thoughts, or ideas. Then promote those ideas or try to pass on tasks that align to that. Having a road map or very specific goals i think makes a big difference. Like it was mentioned... if you do all you can, and at the end you keep running into the same wall driven by bad coordinators and production. Then it is time to move on, and there is no shame in that. You gotta look out for yourself first, and just be a role model through your work ethics and communication skills.
As far as motivation goes... i still yet to find a good way to motivate people directly. Passively... just doing the best i can and involving people in the pipeline does a good job.
just my very disorganized thoughts on the matter.
I agree with this, not just because it sounds like you need one but it can also give you a little perspective. Take a break and get away from it all. If you still feel the same after your break then I'd think about looking for new jobs.
I find even if im working on a huge AAA franchise that I know is going to get 8-9's reviews after working on the same project for a year + you get in the monotony groove, the first few months im always motivated and inspired, but once the long haul kicks in I usually get a lil negative and just want to ship the game.
I think its natural to have cycles of motivation towards things in life you are passionate about, I fluctuate between being passionate about my day job at ubisoft and my night life as a DJ/Music producer. taking time from one to focus on the other more intensly usually means when you go back to it you are refreshed and feeling a bit more positive and motivated towards it.
I also found in the last couple years since I essentially started to refuse to do unpaid overtime or overtime at all, my life has improved. I do my 8 hours of work mon-fri and the rest of my time is mine, which means I can focus on other aspects of my lifestyle than constantly thinking about work. working crunch and 12 hour days does nothing other than burn you out.
also sometimes you just get tired of something you used to be passionate about, and if you have gotten all the fullfillment out it you need, look for something else to be passionate about IE: a career change
Then again sometimes it just comes down to shutting the fuck up, buckling down and hammering it out to the bitter end
But most of these threads are always about what to do when you lose motivation. How about steps to prevent it? I think a big one, at least for me, is never staying late on a Friday. Even during crunch. Even if you`re coming on on Saturday or Sunday, Something about leaving at 5 / 6 on a Friday just helps keeps keep it all together. Which, I guess could be counter productive if you`ve already lost that motivation, cause its more like F this, im out. But ya, finishing up and going for a beer with some buddies / coworkers. Definitely a good thing for mental health.
And don't force yourself to stay late if you`re just not feeling it that day. There really is no shame in having days were you aren't focused. It happens to everyone. Its best to just go home at a normal time and refresh a bit that night. I know I've been working a LOT lately, staying late most days. But you gotta cut yourself some slack too. If it gets past 6 and I notice im spending more time on the internet than working, Or watching that video I have on my second screen more than I normally would (usually its just to listen to), I pack it up and go home.
If the project you`re on just isnt your cup of tea, do something at home you actually want to do. Something of your own design. Something that will push your skills and really get your creative juices going again.
But ya, I think you lose your motivation to the point you dont want to go into work, it's time to look for a new place to work.
For the first 4 years of my career I worked at a large, Fortune 200 company. It was massive, our IT department alone was something like 800+ people. Coming into the company, I knew nothing about healthcare - I had always been a generalist in the technology field. As I learned more and more about the industry, it slowly consumed me and became my passion. At my peak, I was spending around 14-16 hours a day working/studying the industry. To the point that I surpassed both my colleagues and mentors - quickly becoming the "goto" guy for anything related to healthcare technology within the company. I sat on a board with 7 other individuals who were considered some of the best in the industry, and all we did was take orders from senior management on creating resolutions for the most critical issues in the company.
It was great at first, I'd wake up around 6:30am and not go to bed until 1am or so - constantly getting praised by the VP's, my CIO, and my colleagues for solving the most difficult problems in the company, or developing patches and plugins for industry standard software that the software companies themselves started integrating and packaging in their multi-million dollar software packages(healthcare is an expensive field). Always working, always.
After 4 years of doing this non-stop, I was burnt out. I had no desire to come into work. The simplest request from management seemed meaningless and monotonous. I was pissed all the time, I constantly got into stupid arguments with my girlfriend - had no desire to do much of anything. Something that I had so much passion for to begin with, became a drag to even think about - I needed change.
I decided that the problem was the company. It was too big, too much work, too dictator-ish, too many management problems - I blamed everything that I could think of. So I found a better job, at a better pay rate, with a better company - and started all over.
My new company was great. Bonuses per quarter, large Christmas bonuses, great benefits, set my own hours, 2-hour lunches, my own awesomely fashioned office, tons of continuing education money budgeted, I was in heaven. I went into the company as a one man team, the company decided to start a new department and I was going to be the pet project to see how the department would fair.
6 months down the line I had done it again. I was working constantly, constantly worried about deadlines, pushing myself to the limit by managing over 70+ projects at once - pumping out code like a damn machine. I again, found myself pissed off, demotivated to come into work, stressed all the time, etc. - What was wrong with me? I was at a dream company with a dream job? If I didn't want to work the last 4 hours of the day, I didn't have to and no one would say anything because I was my own boss. I could drive halfway across town and eat at a place of my choosing without having to worry about rushing back to work. I could work from home, or on the weekends, or whenever I wanted - as long as the work got done.
I decided that the company was the problem. I started blaming board level members for all the problems in the company. Started blaming clients and colleagues. Pissed by the time I got home.
It then occurred to me that I needed to stop blaming others and take control of my life - I was a promising employee with a great career ahead of me, but not if I continued to act the way I did. My first plan of action was to work from 8am - 5pm Monday thru Friday. I was done working at 2am in the morning on Sunday, I was done working 80 hours a week. I needed a proper work/life balance.
My next plan of action was to petition for more help in my department - I was a one-man show, so I began reporting metrics to our senior authority. Within a few months I was budgeted with 3 new positions open with my discretion as to who to hire.
I started forming a team, with an emphasis on 8am - 5pm Monday thru Friday and nothing else. I didn't want myself or my team to take work home, it wasn't healthy for them or their families. Additionally, I decided that work was going to stay work. I wasn't going to think of healthcare at all unless I was at work.
I finally had control of my life, and a proper work/life balance. Instead of me going home and studying my career for another 8 hours after work, I took the 8 hours at work and put my passion into it.
Not only did I find that when I woke up in the morning, that I was excited to go into work - but that my passion had returned and that I was actually more productive in my new 40 hour work week then I was in my 80 hour work week.
So, my advice is - find a hobby that's outside of your job. Mine include LEGO, Cooking, and now 3D Art. I'm excited to come home and cook for my family, or tear open a new LEGO set to build with my children, or get on here and look at all the cool stuff you guys design. I'm also excited about my work because I don't let it consume me anymore. That's important, my decompression time is no longer in parallel with my work and honestly that's made all the difference for me.
A year and a half later and I'm the happiest I've ever been. 3D Art, Cooking and LEGO are my decompression hobbies. Healthcare Technology is my work. I don't let either get into the way of each other. I come home, I kiss my girlfriend, I play with my kids, and I have motivation to do it all. A balanced lifestyle is the key, and a hobby outside of work is the keyhole for that lifestyle.
Things on the job sure aren't perfect in terms of heavenly perfection. But they are perfect for what they are turning out to be. You can always consider your environments turn out based on what you bring and put into it. Which ultimately, if things are turning into poor work situations that lower productivity, or someone at the company is poisoning the well to drink from. Well, that's you're cue to be a leader and speak up.
Jobs will not be perfect, but you can be. To your own ideal vision. Just as long as you don't think too much in the moment and just "Do" the job as required to keep it.
My own philosophy while on the job and dealing with bad management, piss poor poisoning individuals who have elitist attitudes. Is pretty much remind myself I'm an Artist and I don't care much for their tiny world perspectives, and the game I ultimately devout much time to will not allow me a say, to impact for the greater good of its success. So do what I am here to do, and do it to the extent I would be damn proud to praise about.
Other things like mentioned, get up and take breaks. Practice not talking about drama at or out of the work place. Instead, talk of the dreams you wish your game/product to become. Also, do homework on other disciplines and work areas you can best contribute to, or become a contributor.
- inefficient processes causing lots of rework and overtime and continued problems
- a lack of merit based, or evidence based, decision making
These can both be the cause of each other. The best way to increase morale is to fix these problems. Not by running morale boosting exercises, or by mandating certain kinds of behaviour.
Thanks for sharing this and your example shows that if people don't watch out for themselfs even in a great company things can go down pretty easy.
Thank you for sharing your story
Work to live. Don't live to work.
Everyone is different. Work/life balance is a very personal ratio.
Collectively, we all work in an industry we are super passionate about. And us artists can tend to take things very personal. Of course this means we pour our hearts into our work sometimes...but you just gotta remember that this isn't your own personal project...and sometimes you have to accept decisions that you don't personally agree with...because you will most definitely end up in a situation where you strongly disagree with the direction a game/studio/client is heading.
I think that is where the work/life balance comes into play...sometimes you really have to just stop taking work personally, and leave work at work. If I'm not particularly excited with the work that I'm doing at the moment, then I end up filling that void with person creative endeavors at home.
I don't have as much experience with this as a lot of other people do...so consider that.
I made a huge leap of faith during summer moving back to Vancouver with no job and nothing lined up not because it was the smartest thing to do but i needed a huge life jolt to get out of motivational funk i was in at my previous job.
all these things applied to me:
the words in bold being the biggest turning points for me.
After i left that company i promised myself never to work unpaid overtime and be taken advantage of by management ever again. And only work at studios/freelance jobs where i am invested in the project and its not just a paycheck for me.
My advice to anyone working at a studio they are basically done with, update you're portfolio throw out your resume to places you would like to work and start a new exciting chapter in you're life.
I also should have prefaced this with the fact that all those things I listed were different reasons I could think of for loss of motivation in a professional environment, not that I was personally going through all of them. I would for sure find a new job if I was ha. But I do want thank everyone who sent me a nice personal message/concern. It was appreciated
As for the whole, just don't care mentality of things I can NEVER see myself as someone who dose that. I love what I do too much. I pour passion into my work because I enjoy what I do so much. For me its super exciting and if I didnt need to work a day in my life this is still what I would want to do with most of my time. I am not devoting every waking moment to work and what I do, but when I am at work I like to give it all I can and try to make the most kick ass stuff possible. But I can and have seen the flaws of becoming to attached to stuff at work you work on
I started this thread for 3 main reasons...
1. This is something I never see talked about among professionals as they don't want that stigma of they lost there passion. But it is an issue that professionals have to deal with and having a thread on the topic can be helpful for those to worry to talk about it themselves. And frankly I am not personally worried about any kinda stigma, I love the hell out of what I do and like to think that normally shines through.
2. I had an old friend who was going through a lot of the things on that listed and it totally zapped them of any motivation of being in this industry. It sucked as there friend realizing I didn't know how to motivate them through a shity time. Last time I talked with them they seemed to adopt the "I don't care, this is just a job to get by" mentality and personally I think that is terrible and would never want to have that mind set. (they could have bounced back now, not sure)
3. I personally have hit an old limbo state at work, that I know in 2 or 3 months will pass, but still trying to find that motivation to get through the next 2 or 3 months has been difficult and so seeking advice from other professionals I thought would be the best thing to do
So lets see how much I can say without getting into trouble...ha
Personally the level I was working on for an extended period of months was recently all but completely cut. A change was needed and restructuring of the level from the ground up had to happen. (which is for the best in terms of gameplay) But with this brought about a change in location and direction of the level. At the core its still the same idea but only small bits will carry over from the level I was so pumped to work on.
Pretty demoralizing to say the least. I cant help but feel like all that time was sadly wasted. I know the new direction still will be awesome and it fits better for gameplay, but there was a bit of magic about the artist look as it was before that I feel is now lost and unfortunately cant just be shoehorned into the new area. Added with the fact that on a console jump things are very start, stop, redo just adds to that feeling. (and with ND, we have 1 environment and 1 texture artist per level and thats generally the only level you work on, so when that gets a huge change you really feel the loss of work)
Now I have had to deal with levels being cut already and I know it can suck for a while. Luckily on Uncharted 3 when our super cool single player Oasis level was cut it was in the middle of crunch so there was too much work to do to really focus on it.
Unfortunately now I am stuck in an awkward limbo phase of design being a good 2 or 3 months out and the art direction is not locked down as other tasks are taking priority. I'm back to the "look dev" phase that I had been in for months and after months of doing that only too see all the cool work I had done being cut, it feels hard to be motivated to do it again while waiting for design.
So I guess thats the unfortunate position I am in. I know once design figures out exactly what they want and have something in 2 or 3 months this will pass as I still love what I do and am super excited to get the ball rolling. I haven't lost my passion for what I do or even the project I am working on, but being stuck in this odd limbo phase is sadly depressing.
I'm just imagining IGN finding out a level was cut and the headlines they would make up haha. The gaming media seems to be gunning for you guys at the moment.
I am glad your not totally disheartened
I know how it feels to lose work done especially something so significant. At the end I have to remind myself this is for the team the game... it is not about my individual work, but how it all works together.
Use the limbo time to explore new workflow ideas and or new tools this always helps me get through the bumps on the road beside many other good suggestions here
This is a great topic though and it is sort of never mentioned I think people think it is all candy and sunshine in the industry at top studios. Sometimes we have our kind of dull boring sluggish times and sometimes we are doing so much work we can barely breath.
These limbo moments are always dreadful.
Atm I am not in limbo though but some are...
and just in case an IGN person comes along.
THIS IS NORMAL in this industry nothing said here is news just normality thank you very much... Horrible news people who have no real facts.
...for example I really like playing retro games like donkey kong country,megaman, or listening to your favorite game OST can really bring back the spark for creation. diablo 2 music has always done the job for me : )
it is not easy to avoid stress or crunches which are out of our control but spending some time on stuff we enjoy is certainly something in our control. when I am in a bad spot I try to focus on the future and how this shitty thing I am doing might come in handy later on in my career.
Well, it's a vicious cycle. All the current AAA studios started as small indie teams and made the games they wanted. The same fate faces current indie studios.
While I agree about having said that talented people are starting their own indie studios. While leaving behind the bigger ones.
To the quoted note, It's a 50/50. To be quite honest, not all indie studios are really making anything they want to make. Some are ran by people who want to be publishers and developers. Which inherently prevent their talent pool staying confident in their own ability to deliver what they want w/o a 3 hour or more disagreeable and possible argument why which is righter than the other.
I admire Turtle Rock keeping a low profile and taking much needed risk to make the game they really dream to make come true. Which is fuckin awesome. But the only indie teams making it big are those either to some extent are mobile developers. Who are approaching game making from a super-nes era with modern ideas. Or simply, those who haven't made it big, and are still hiding away from big talent that haven't gotten noticed because of various reasons.
***Disclaimer - I'm not a professional artist, my professional career has been in healthcare technology - I'm not sure how a professional art studio works, but I can suspect that it works quite a bit like a professional software development team.***
I'm going to continue to put the disclaimer in this thread, because I've never worked in a game development/art studio. However, large-scale software development is pretty much the same wherever you go.
____
Based on my own experience, I've found that most people in the workplace that considered themselves visionaries - or who have strong opinions in their work - get so caught up in their opinions that they fail to convey them properly.
They convey their visions based on how they would want someone else to present the vision/opinion to them, instead of tailoring it for the recipients of the vision/opinion.
Choices ARE made in a company, people DO listen to SOMEONE - you just have to make sure that you catch their attention and that person is you. Not every person perceives information the same way, and it's your job in the workplace to understand who needs to listen to your opinions and HOW you should present the information to them.
For example, my position within my company makes me an outlier. I hold multiple hats, but my two most predominant ones are Team Lead and Project Coordinator. I handle all the project coordination for capital projects, and any mini-projects I delegate as necessary to my team. It has been a huge learning experience.
I know that if I have an opinion/vision about the way our product is being marketed that I need to get the backing of my VP of Marketing. I know that this person perceives information visually - charts, graphs, flare, etc. Coming to this person and talking to them in a technical sense, or conveying that message from a developer perspective will get me no where with this person. I need to convey my ideas to said person via means that they understand and respond to.
I know that if I need to bring up a topic to my Director, that this person is a stickler for cyber-security. Throwing in some security advantages into my idea will most likely allow me to push the idea through and get the backing.
I know that if I'm needing to push an additional feature or a direction for our product through, that getting the backing of our VP of Sales and our Product Managers is the way to go. They speak money, I have to convey my idea to speak money. I have to show them that in the long run my idea will either save the company money or be good for business. Numbers, figures, dollar signs, that's all they want to see.
Doing so, you may find out in doing this additional research that your awesome idea that you had isn't really as grand or as important as you once thought - as people generally do not look at the overall picture that their ideas may influence, and it might just so happen that your idea is shit for other departments/areas of the company.
It would be really easy, on my part, to go into any of these meetings and talk technical(or art) to them - but it's not going to get me anywhere.
Corporate environment is literally a Game of Thrones, and if you learn how to play it you can be the most powerful person in said company, or you can be a Ned Stark.
TL;DR - Decisions are made in companies and you need to make sure that those decisions are yours.
https://37signals.com/rework/
- ASAP is poison
- UNDERDO the competition
- Meetings are TOXIC
- Fire the Workaholics
- Emulate drug dealers
- Pick a fight
- Planning is guessing
- Inspiration is perishable
I find that if you understand yourself emotionally and hoe you work as a person you can pretty much do all the things you need to do to stay on track. Another thing I do too get excited is look at concept art and 3d from my project because when you look at your work alone you loose sight of how cool the stuff you're working on is and what its for. Sometimes ill fuck something up or feel like I'm not good enough but I get over it and just realize I have to keep moving forward and I'm going to just straight wreck what ever is in my way because I can't just be a quitter.
Not sure if this is helpful, I'm almost always motivated for work at work just never work at home.
Beer :thumbup:
JacqueChoi: this book looks amazing, thanks for sharing.
With time I've been learning less and less by doing what I was good at, project wasn't as good as expected but lack of third thing killed my enthusiasm. Everyone was too busy to even noticed if you're doing a good job or not.
I believe most important things to do to not burn out is:
- get a life outside work
- making personal project in a way and pace you want
- have opportunities to prove yourself at work (work itself doesn't really have to be creative, creativity is overrated)