What Makes You A Professional

Well, this is a tough one. Answer for this is somewhat subjective, but maybe there are some common things we all can agree. I have always been wondering if I am professional or not, or professional enough and what this is. Nowadays I know that I am professional enough, and if not, I will get feedback about it - and as a professional I won't break into tears while getting it! (well maybe just a little bit, but let's not tell anyone, right?)

Forbidden Words: I-DON'T-KNOW

In the beginning of my career I thought that being professional as a software developer means that you have to know everything and if you don't know, you have to figure it out, or fake it. Never tell that you don't know something. Oh, how wrong I was back then. There is so much what comes to software development that no one knows it all - or they are lying.

For me it caused a huge stress, anxiety and fatigue. I spent most of the evenings and weekends trying to learn new things and always be prepared to answer and give opinion if someones asks something at work from me.

After I figured it out that it's actually not professional, it's actually unprofessional and harmful in many ways. It took me about 12 years before I was ready to say at work that I don't know about something, I need help with something and in a way that I don't feel bad about saying so. It doesn't mean I am not going to figure it out, but by being able to say these things openly, I was able to get help from my team mates and time for figuring things out. If they would think that I know everyhting, they would be wondering why does it take so long, but now they know and they are not left second guessing why something takes more time. This also gives the team a chance to give the task for someone else if we are in hurry and someone else knows better how to do the task.

This helped me to handle my stress, or even prevent it. I can focus better, I have time, I get help and trust from others.

You Must Be Perfect

From what I told you in the first chapter, followed another thing before I figured things out. Because of not being able to say that I-Don't-Know, I was trying to be perfect in everything I did. Unfortunately that didn't go well.

Everything I did took a long amount of time because I ended up doing things I never had done before and needed to learn and often it was trial-and-error approach. Then time was use, or wasted, so much that I didn't necessarily learn the thing, but I managed to get it somewhat working, but it wasn't ready when manager or teammate told me that it should be done already or that I need to move on.

This lead into sleepless nights, I was coding and figuring out work when I should have been sleeping. Sleep debt just made it worse, but got damm - I was trying! Results just wasn't that good.

I still remember that I even told in my job applications and interviews that one of my strengths is perfectionism. It seemed to be working, and I believed in that 100 percent back then.

After several burnouts and one big one I figured out that perfectionism was one of the drivers torwards to burnout - well it was fun as long as it lasted - not really, but I learned a lot in a short period of time!

Being perfect is not possible, and if you ask from different people about what being perfect means to them, the answers will vary. It's not same for everyone. One way to look at this is also that you should be able to think do we really have time and are we getting paid by the client if we do some feature "perfect". Or can we do MVP and release faster.

Being professional is not about being perfect all the time at any cost. Being professional is about being able to make a judgement when it's time to be perfect and when not.

Perfectionism is a common driver behind getting burned out, and there is also one more thing in between those two. Procrastination, but more about it in later posts.

What Things Are Concidered Professional

Being able to say no to things you don't have time and knowledge. Being able to delegate. Being able to ask help from others. Being able to learn new things while solving a problem. Being able to rise and talk about the problems you see in the project, team, client or such. Being able to give constructive feedback. Being able to handle feedback about yourself and your work. People skills. Being on time in meetings. Being able to communicate your progress and tell if you think that something is not going to be finished on schedule.

There is much more to this, but what do you think about the topic, what do YOU think what things you concider as professional - What Makes You A Professional: and what not?