Demotivated after a poor hike

I started as a fresher at a big service-based company, faced a lot of politics, and was learning nothing. I realized I needed to leave it ASAP. I left it after 8 months, then was jobless for 2 months. After 2 months joined an early-stage startup, and was satisfied with my learning for a while, but in the backend team, there were only two people me and the CTO. And my dynamics with him didn't go very well. There was no culture as well, weekdays and weekends were the same. I was still fine with it but the guy (CTO) became very toxic and creepy. In 2 months, I started interviewing and I got into a mid-sized series B startup that had a good culture. I had to switch tech stack and it was more overwhelming than I thought initially. I tried to do good but I got laid off after working there for 10 months. All the way along I increased my package to a decent level. Now I feel super demotivated and underconfident and it's been 6 months since and I haven't taken up a job. With an increasing gap, I feel I have fucked up my career. In these 6 months, I have tried exploring different career options but haven't been able to crack any or have been indecisive and I feel I should just take up a job.

My current salary is 42LPA. I am from IIT, have 7 years of experience and work in product. Honestly, my value in the market is higher than what I’m being paid but I am very demotivated to optimise for that. When I do see less deserving people minting more money, I feel that I am doing injustice to myself and playing the wrong hand. More and more though, the thought of earning more money chokes me a bit. I have dreams of building something of my own - that gives me control to build something my way and freedom to live my life as per my terms. But the mindset of “zyada paisa pareshaani hai” doesn’t leave me. My family also is not dependent on me and whatever is needed from my side, I actively contribute to. I also lack any motivation to focus on my investments and see my money grow. I just have money sitting around in my bank account purely for nothing I also look at my lifestyle choices from time to time and go into existential debate of why we need the things that we do. This has come to a point where I really do not understand my relationship with money and why we earn and spend it. For me at this point, it’s just a show for the world. There’s very little that you need, and really no limit to what you want to show. And I just don’t see a point in it anymore.

So, my boss is an absolutely lovely person, and is the best boss I've had so far. Not to brag, but I'm also the best performer in my team, by a mile. So, while I do get my pats on the back, I'm also rewarded with more and more work. I love, atleast so far, what I do, so I didn't mind taking up more work, because I learnt a lot in the process too, and it helped my hone my craft better. Cut to now, I'm losing interest in work. Don't feel like taking up any new work, no matter how exciting the brief, or how great its potential. I feel like I'm burnt out. And majorly demotivated. What makes it worse is seeing this other member in my team chill the absolute fk out. He's hardly even given any important projects because of what a waste resource he is. I've also just been promoted. So, I'm not sure if I should share what's on my mind with my boss. My mind says I shouldn't, but my heart says it should be fine. What should I do about: 1. Telling or not telling my boss what I'm going through (because I'm scared if it'll come back to bite my later) 2. Me feeling extremely burnt out and demotivated. Drop in a joke or two, if you want, but please drop in a serious and genuine reply too.

I did not grow up in a lot of money. I ordered looking at the prices on the menu. This feeling has stayed with me and has fueled me to thrive, push harder, work long hours and get to my goals. I'm 5 years into my career, and last year I had a feeling of "making it". I had enough to not look at the menu, or even the place I'd be going to. This feeling is really really satisfying and I took some time to sit with it, enjoy and bask in this glory (humbly). But I also feel my drive to hustle and do better has gone down. For instance, I'm okay pushing work to tomorrow, I'm not as keen to pickup work. I feel some of graveviners could relate to 'making enough' story. Have you also feel a lack of hustle to keep you going? What do you think is the reason? For experienced folks, I'm really keen to know how to get past this slump.

Does anyone feel hopeless? It’s a never ending cycle of chasing money and the sad part is I am not even making anything close to my peers with same years of experience. I am just disappointed, my direct manager refuses to promote me even after I have consistently told him that I want to be PM from the very start and followed pursuit for projects to highlight my skills. Yet he continues to say do the job without the money, you don’t really need the title. I understand that this is the way forward for coelevating and collaborating but it professionally hurts me if I don’t have the title. CTC: 14lpa

I feel a lot of insecurity about what if I lost my job. I work in Analytics & data science in a well known Indian Bank. Overall WOE is 8 yrs with 6 yrs in Analytics Tier 1 Engg+MBA. I would say after MBA i lost my way and hence behind my peers in career growth. This is mostly due to unsatisfactory work in the beginning leading to switches based on emotions and impulse, not patience. Though my current job is stable and its been about 2.5 years in this role, it’s a bit stressful and honestly I don’t like the constant firefighting mode that we are in. I constantly put in 10-11 hrs on a daily basis with occasional work on weekends. This includes almost 3 hrs of meetings everyday, where a lot of redundant work requests come in and almost everytime they have to be delivered in next 1-2 days. Quality of work is not so great. I tried applying but not getting decent calls. Only startups and Indian cos with high turnover reply to my applications. They too aren’t ready to discuss a decent hike. I am really insecure about what will happen if I quit / laid off. I have gone through layoffs earlier in my career and believe me it’s a terrible experience, eats up all your savings. I tI tried a few sidegigs to build passive income source such as building a YouTube channel on travel, or a travel advisory app but couldn’t move much. App didn’t happen and YT channel didn’t get off after few months of hard work. I currently am very demotivated and feel that i have not been able to grow in my career. Salary posts on grapevine add a lot more to my demotivation. Current CTC is 27.

Having almost 6yrs experience with single digit salary 😭 every friend and colleague are making a killing every recruiter I speak to just offer x% over last CTC but not the amount I ask stating budget issue. This is taking a toll on my mental health unable to focus on up skilling / working in current org plz help not sure what to do.

I am preparing for the Staff engineer role. Have put my resignation without any offer in hand due to being highly underpaid, no recognition towards my high-value work, poor management, toxic work culture and work-life balance. I lose all my motivation to study gauzing at the things I am yet to study for the interviews. I don't want to settle with another mediocre company and stay under paid just like today. At the same time I don't have any monetory reserve to feel safe on financial side. Please help me with your words and past experiences of being in a similar situation.

I joined a startup in 2021 with a 6 LPA package. After about a year I learnt that one of my colleague, who had joined 3 month before me, and who's from the same batch (2021) as mine is being paid 12 LPA for the same role, even though I'm much better than him in terms of programming knowledge and development skills. Learning that killed all the motivation I had to work and now I feel cheated and deceived. How should I deal with this situation ?

took the plunge, started up last year. burned all savings, couldn't raise any capital. tried multiple things, nothing took off. decided to shut down in june. shutting down was harder than starting up, finished things up by october. been looking for jobs since, with no luck. had kick-ass jobs prior to this. no clue what is happening now. really want to give starting up another shot but have lost all motivation. so lost. no idea what to do.