Unmotivated and Overwhelmed

Feeling unmotivated and overwhelmed is a normal thing that could happen to human beings. Are you feeling unmotivated or overwhelmed right now? Why so? If you’re currently working, is the workload too much or boring perhaps? If you’re a student, is the learning material too difficult to grasp? Is there anything you can do about it?

I feel excited when I receive a new assignment, it’s as if I’m entering a new world. At work, sometimes when it’s boring and too hard to handle, I’d think of it as if I’m playing a game.

Not an avid gamer but I play several short and simple games. I know that in games we’re tasked with assignments to do. In the world of the game, we are given an indicator called experience point or XP for short. What’s the purpose of XP? It’s to let us know how far we have progressed so far. The better you are, the more XP you will receive and once you have collected certain XPs, you’ll level up. It’s the same at work. Sharpening my skill is as like I’m collecting my XPs. After a project finishes, I think of it as I have collected enough XPs for me to advance to a higher level — just like games.

However, there are times that the tasks could be very mundane as I call it day-to-day tasks, nothing new, nothing exciting. That’s usually when I feel demotivated.

In the past 3–4 months, I’ve been trying to pick up a new skill. Read in the World Economic Forum that my job would be one of the first to let go in the coming years. So then I thought, “maybe instead of robots and automation that would replace me, I should be the brain behind those programs”. The idea that my job would be let go soon makes me kind of nervous.

To be the brain, I should be able to do programming to control the automation. I tried to do my research and found out that Python is a programming language that’s commonly used in my industry, so I started to learn about it. I took it easy at first, using an app called “Mimo” on my phone. It’s basically like the famous language-learning app “Duolingo” where we also collect XPs.

Through my research, one of the commonly used platforms to study Data Science is DataCamp.

My specialisation at work is Data Visualisation or DataViz, which turns (financial) data into charts or graphs for users/readers/presenters for easy understanding. I’m old school so I create charts and graphs using Microsoft Excel.

FYI, I am coming from a non-IT background, hence learning how to code is like entering a new world to me, very foreign. Since DataViz is something that I’ve been doing consistently this past few years, straightaway enrolling myself in Python for the DataViz course should make sense. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Why? Because then I would not know the basics of using Python.

Python is a new skill for me. Consider yourself a cook. When you just started cooking, I’m pretty sure you’ll start with boiling water or making sunny side eggs or omelettes. I think it would be wrong to start making apple pie or lamb shank which are more advanced for a novice. I was too eager to learn and focus solely on DataViz instead of coding like the Data Engineer so I was not in the right mind.

DataCamp offers the Intro to Python course and I should have taken that before diving into DataViz which is an intermediate level course. Okay in my defence, at the start of the DataViz course there was a lesson or two on Intro to Python, hence I thought it should suffice.

I tried to follow the tutorials, wrote my code based on what I’ve learned so far and when I ran the code, it kept giving me error messages. I got frustrated then I requested hints. Still didn’t get the hints. Eventually, I revealed the answer to the exercise.

I kept on proceeding with the next lessons and chapters but it got worse and did not make any sense to me. I struggled to understand the instructions to the point that I gave up. Being a novice and trying to learn intermediate and advanced stuff without a strong knowledge foundation certainly overwhelmed me.

Getting hints and revealing answers mean no XPs given to my effort although half of the answers were correct. I know that XPs may mean nothing in the real world, it’s not as if I could exchange XPs for gold/diamonds/foods, etc. I treat my XPs as my marks or score. If I could get a full score on the exercises, it means that I must have understood it correctly. I pushed myself to get everything done as soon as I could and earn the certificates of accomplishment.

The overwhelming feeling took over me and I got unmotivated because there were so many to learn and yet I feel like I’m competing with time. I also got unmotivated because I understood very little. I then decided to take a break. For the whole week, I stopped learning Python and all Data Science-related things.

After a week, I logged in again and went through the list of courses offered with a cool head. It gave me clarity! I empty my knowledge bank and start over from the very beginning. I had to be humble to re-learn everything from the start. It takes time of course, but I get better and better at it.

My mentor once told me, “You’re just like other youngsters, you want to see the result as soon as you’re getting some jobs done. It’s not like that, you know. It takes time to see the results of your hard work. Not instant like that.”

True that. Even instant noodles are not instant as in you can eat it within seconds after you open the packet (unless you’re eating it raw?).

Jokes aside, so to feel unmotivated and overwhelmed is alright at times. You’re still a human. Recognise that. Take the time to assess it.

Several things I did to recover and come back stronger were:

• I stopped showering myself with materials.
• I took the time off and let the thought of it get out of my mind.
• Think cool-headedly, reassess why I struggled.
• Is there any way I could improve my learning process? If yes, what is it?
• Then, get up mate and try again! There’s nothing wrong with re-learning and giving it another shot, you may then find something that hooks you to the learning process/topic you’re researching.
• Strengthen your foundation. A strong foundation leads to a better structure of your own house of knowledge and you may progress further from there.
• Enjoy the learning process! And look back once in a while.
• Celebrate your small winnings. It matters! 😊