Hi all, for some background I am 1 of 3 seniors on my team and feel as if everything I’ve done so far has been thrown away (because in reality it has, but that’s a story for another day). I feel burnt out and I don’t have any motivation anymore but I still am clocking hours just getting stuff done because I’m the only one who can. I’m trying to train the younger students but they don’t show up so it’s up to me to get stuff done. How do people continue and stay motivated? Thank you!
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Sounds like it’s about time for you to take a break. Robotics shouldn’t feel like an obligation.
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Probably, luckily I’ve got a trip this weekend so I’ll be gone from Friday-Sunday. Hopefully getting away helps.
Seconding what @amb said, it sounds like you need to take a break. Remember, you should be doing robotics because you want to do robotics, not because you have to do robotics.
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That’s a good way to look at it, right now I feel I have to do robotics, instead of wanting to do robotics. I wish I could find some way to get the spark that made me love robotics back.
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Time away often helps with that.
Although I have been a bit removed from the team for a few years now, and having been in college, I feel this advice might be relevant to you and others reading both inside and outside the world of FRC.
Find your personal-work life balance limits
I’d recommend learning the signs of burnout if you haven’t already and over time learn what signs most occur with yourself, especially in the early stages. Life is a marathon but sometime it can feel like a sprint so it can be important to occasionally remind yourself to take a step back and give yourself some perspective. Knowing when to take ease your foot off the gas pedal is equally important as knowing when to go all out.
Know your why
Adding to the above point, a apart of this includes knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing and what purpose it serves. Within the team and on CD you’ve probably heard the saying, “We don’t build robots, We use robots to build people”. With that said, what are you and the team as a whole trying to do? What is your why? As much as the feeling of relief after winning a finals match and walking down to the field to pickup the blue banner is, that’s not the end all be all nor should it be. Teaching and growing others is, in my option, of equal or greater importance. That was actually something I learned after my first season was over at the build lead. As much as I wanted a blue banner I knew that that was something I wanted personally, and might’ve not aligned with the teams long term goals. So that was why I decided to shift my focus slightly away from simply winning no mater the cost, towards teaching others what I know so that they can in turn help the team overall and get one step closer to having our cake and eating it too (aka winning another Blue banner). And if not, at the very least they learned something new which is always a good thing! If what I wrote also resonates with you great, if not, that’s totally fine too. Everyone has their own why and knowing it deeply can go a long way to setting up personal boundaries and making good decisions.
Taking some time off
Resonating what others have mentioned, unlike machines we can’t do the same thing over and over without fail. We’re all human. and as humans we are multi-faceted creatures. Find time to pursue other hobbies and interests or at the very least ease off the gas on FRC. Finding passion in other hobbies can help you re-light that robotics flame once you decide to return. Also it can help you better work-life boundaries to prevent encroachment in either direction. You’ve probably known me well enough to know that I have the propensity to go all out on robots in FRC. Now that’s changed slightly with college. I’ve learned there are other more important priorities (I can tell you from experience that re-taking classes ain’t cheap!). Don’t get me wrong I still love and am heavily involved in robotics but just not to the levels I used to be in High school and that’s perfectly fine. No one is going to shame you for having personal boundaries and a work-life balance, and if they do they are bad friends/ co-workers lol.
“Wasted time”
As much as it sucks to have a personal idea be trashed, it happens. Not to invalid those feeling but just know, it don’t stop. I’ve heard stories from others that their work project got canned because of budget cuts or worse yet, they themselves got canned for the same reason. But doing a root cause analysis might be something fun to toy around with, at least for those who like that kind of stuff, e.g me lol. Why was your idea not selected? Sometimes a “bad” idea can be chalk up to the phrase, “Garbage in, Garbage out”. Or in other words, was the game strategy, defined constraints and criteria fully fleshed out? If not, what could you change to better allow you to design something that better met the requirements? If you did have good defined constraints/criteria, what about the evaluation process? What details or considerations were overlooked when evaluating designs to go to the next steps of prototype/ build? Again, a designer is only as good as the information they are given to work with. Even if you still feel bad about having your design not end up being picked, I will say from experience that this is the type of stuff that is gold for job interviews. They love it when you are able to describe a time something went wrong and how you grew as a result of it. No time is truly wasted, but just recycled for other situations in life! Or as I like to say, "more data points is always good ".
Keeping others motivated
This was a big one for me. Unlike a paying job, clubs like FRC don’t require their students to “stick it out”. Forcing others to stay sucks not only for the person forcing but also the person being forced. This makes getting stuff done really hard especially when there are more tasks than human capital at disposal. But one thing I’ve done (with varying degrees of success) is to reach out and communicate with those who are or have flaked/missed team meetings. Asking them if there is anything going on in their personal life that impacting them or straight up asking why they they don’t show up to meetings anymore. Sometimes it’s a lack of interest, other times they have conflicting recurring events, or they might just be burnt out too. Regardless, learning why can help keep what’s left of the remaining team and allows you to try and find ways to help others out so they can help you in return.
TL;DR
- A work-life balance is crucial and so is knowing when the signs of burnout
- Find your personal why and use it to guide your decision making
- We’re human, not one dimensional creatures. It’s okay to switch things up every once and a while to keep things fresh and interesting
- Learn why others might be skipping meeting and try to communicate can find a compromise so that you can help them and they can help you
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Thank you for your insight. Your opinion means a lot to me, being a alumni of 1259 and one of the people who made me love robotics so much. I was out of town this weekend, and it helped. It allowed me just to decompress and regain some motivation for the rest of the season. I’m really looking forward to the Wisconsin Regional next weekend. You should come by sometime, it’d be great to see you!
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Please remember that it is not the job of a student to shoulder the sole responsibility of training others. You’re a kid and have much learning to do yourself.
I also thank you for not posting this anonymously. I’d encourage your mentors to take this post to heart and step in where you need their help.
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Well, for as long as I can remember it has been the responsibility of the seniors to train the younger students on my team whilst also building the robot (At least CAD wise). At the start of the season we do a general build training but only how to use the tools, etc.
The mentors aren’t on CD and haven’t shown much help in the past so I don’t think anything will change now. I was going to talk to our head mentor today about changing this and also some other issues within the team this year. So then next year it’s hopefully better.
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