How to maintain mental health while working towards very ambitious goals?

What will “reaching the stars” do for you? Will it ever stop, or will it always be the next promotion or big company to chase? My concern is that you are asserting big goals, but it may actually be that the current situation is “never enough”. Where this comes from, if true, is likely work for you and a therapist or confidant, but it’s not that unusual.

We get the impression that standing still is falling behind in our industry. We can continue to grow without striving for another “step up”. We can get more efficient so we put less time into draining activities, we can learn to better delegate so more is achieved without our direct involvement. This may not get you promoted, but it may reduce your stress, which I think is a bigger win.

The real “secret” in my mind is getting more done in less time. Maybe it’s automation, delegation, process refinement, practice, or any other means to efficiency. Doing that means that you can focus on other things because you can get your required work done in less time. It can feel like “if I am more efficient, I can just get more of those same things done”, but I’d encourage, instead, to use that time for learning, for self-initiated side projects, for mentorship or other “soft influence/skill” work. If your “must do” tasks are done, this changes the pressure dynamic. If you can use more time for less stressful, more rewarding activities that are still valuable to your team, this helps relieve pressure.

Beyond that, there are boundaries. If you always say yes, or work late, or take more on to show you’re a team player or whatever, you may be able to handle it for a while but could also burn out quickly. You are starting a new job, it is a great time to set boundaries for yourself first, then establish them at work. Actually scheduling things at 5:30p (hobby things, not extra work or training things) can serve as both a hard stop for work, and a release valve to reduce stress and refuel. If I didn’t have kids, I would have struggled with this, but it was my “why” for having a hard stop time.

I’m glad you are listening to the warning signs. Decaying health at 26 from overwork is a bad time. Exercise is a great start, and invest in your health. Whether that’s with nutritionists, or personal trainers, or specialized healthcare (genetic testing to optimize diet or supplements), or sleep specialists… staying healthy should be a huge priority. Without your health you can’t even eke by at work, much less excel. I’ve been underwater with depression and other things for a few years and it sunk my time at Meta and it’s 50/50 if I can course correct now at Google. I started with a new psych in January, and if I had done that 3 years prior things may have gone much differently.

You may have anxiety or some form of compulsive behavior that’s worth looking into. If you don’t even know it’s very hard to “recover”. If you are having panic attacks, see a psychiatrist. This isn’t something to push through. 2.5 weeks off is fine, but when you get back you will still be the same person you were. You may be carrying a little less stress, but you will recreate it without intervention.

I guess this comes down to: If we operate like an F1 car, but maintain ourselves like a 70s beater, the wheels will come off and we will be useless. Investing in maintenance of many kinds, and taking care of ourselves like we are high-performance is critical. Get massages, do yoga, talk to doctors, go to therapy, have a mentor you confide in, eat vegetables, socialize with friends, build ships in bottles, whatever it takes to keep yourself running smoothly. Then don’t try to do a cannonball run in a sprint vehicle.

Learn to do more with less time.

When you're in your early to mid 20s, you pretty much have the life hack of infinite energy. This life hack will disappear by your late 20s and early 30s, which you are discovering now.

The solution is to put your personal life first, especially your relationships. For ambitious people, it hurts to go out to spend time with a loved one or exercise when there's a bunch of work that can be done. But what will happen is if you wire your brain to "Always put personal life first", you force it to achieve more with the time-boxed amount of time you have for work (the 9 to 5 or whatever you do).

For example, a lot of the time I'll have a bunch of work I need to do for Taro and want to work late, but I know I really should get some exercise in the evening, at least a 45-60 minute walk. In those scenarios, I just go out for the walk and force my brain to be more productive and prioritize better in the future. Even today, I'm surprised by how often that works. You can do wonders if you put your own feet to the fire.

Software engineering work always follows a power law. Of all the things on your plate, there will be a 20% chunk that truly matters and contributes 80% of the impact. Learn to identify that 20%.

Your post reminded me of a rockstar mentee I have. He is my most brilliant student, growing from new-grad to high-performing senior at Meta in just 3 years ($500k+ TC). His initial approach was to work crazy hours and do 100% of the work for 100% of the impact, landing ~500 commits per half (easily in the top 1% of code committers at Meta). Then he got a girlfriend and learned to tone it down 🤣 - They seem to be very happy together. Now I know he's truly figured out what it means to operate at the highest engineering level: Have a healthy social life while still being a high-performer with ruthless prioritization.

Remember, you aren't doing ruthless prioritization unless it feels painful.

To learn how to prioritize better, check this out: "How to figure out what the most important projects are?"