Throwing in the towel

You need to decide what would make you happy. I personally find myself engaged when I’m solving technical challenges and building things. I realized after 8 years in corporate ID designing new versions of the same widgets I had been doing for the past decade lost it’s fun. There were limited amounts of new challenges and the corporation simply had limited resources and for every innovative product there would be 5 light cosmetic refreshes of something existing.

I decided to transition back into UI/UX at the same company since it presented me with a good opportunity at the time to move roles without a complete career reset. It also meant I had a load of new challenges to undertake personally and professionally so internally I felt more rewarded. Likewise it came with better pay and a year later I left for a risky job at a startup where I continued to evolve that role into a director level position. If I hadn’t decided one day to make that jump I’d be making much less money doing something I had gotten bored of years ago, but it just came to me one morning to talk to the manager of another division and say I wanted to switch, and the rest fell into place.

Moral of the story: Look inside and try to decide what would really make you happy, if you think diversity of product would help, consider a consulting role where you would have more exposure to different product categories on shorter cycles. Or consider entering a market where you really enjoy the work. I know people who went into design in the bike industry and even though the pay is average at best, they absolutely love the life style and working on products that they can live and breathe.

Burn out is common in any industry. Mixing up your exposure is always a good way to do things, but think about where you want your career to be in 5 or 10 more years and think about ways to get on that path. I knew from early on I wanted to focus my career in leading to an executive/C-suite position and that building widgets was only part of the knowledge I needed.

If you haven’t recently and are able, also consider taking a long vacation. 1 week isn’t long enough - try to sneak away for 2 weeks and give yourself some time to do some soul searching. Usually on a 1 week trip I find by the time I’m done sight seeing I’m already checking work emails and preparing myself for the Monday I go back.