If I don’t make time for my wellness I will be forced to make time for my illness. This week I definitely had to learn this. I’m having to own up internally to having a weakness in the face of Strep Throat and needing to be extra vigilant in the winter months of the year to avoid getting it.
Having clear boundaries for myself on my remit (even if no one else does) and making sure these are understood by my colleagues are a great way to avoid scope creep and show trust in others. The clarity and strength of these boundaries helps me prioritise and helps me to give up guilt when things don’t go as planned, especially in areas I’m not expected to control.
Taking on additional lead responsibilities over the last year has also changed who I think my team is (and who my support team is; they are no longer the same thing). I’m continually reminded that you can become part of the account team, client liaison team, architecture team, hiring team, training team and line management team as well as the engineering team, sometimes (but hopefully not often) all in the same week. Getting the balance wrong is an easy ticket to burnout, or at least to you treating your constitution like your dump stat. Getting it right is a motivating spread of variety.
On a really positive note, this week I celebrated 3 years of working as a senior engineer for Made Tech. I joined as an experienced engineer but a complete novice in the public sector and now I can’t imagine working in the private sector again. It’s not without its challenges but the rewards of bringing citizen-facing, positive impact are bigger than any sales bell or black friday success. Putting the career progression ladder to the side for a while, in favour of learning new domains, technologies and ways of working, was the right decision for me. All the progress I make from here is built on broader and even stronger foundations.