The real struggle isn't your job. How I fixed my habits to feel better

Let’s face it: a happy team is a team that produces value

I’m not your favorite Instagram coach-influencer. I’m not here to save the world or preach about mindfulness. I’m running a business, and let’s be honest: happy people make money. Miserable people? They make bugs, drama, and burnout. And drama is expensive as hell.

When I started BearStudio, I quickly realized something obvious: developers have the best working conditions imaginable. You can literally code from anywhere: your couch, a coworking space in Lisbon, or even a rooftop in Thailand at midnight. As long as the client is happy and the code compiles, nobody cares if you’re coding naked from a hammock in Bali.

Yet, despite this insane freedom, most devs I know still live like absolute crap. They spend their days glued to screens, and then surprise?! They spend their evenings glued to other screens. Netflix, gaming, doom-scrolling TikTok until their eyes bleed. From one screen to another, their lives become a never-ending loop of pixels.

So, I thought: if I want my team to produce great work (and therefore, great money), I need to make sure they’re happy. Simple math, right?

So I’m going to create a proper living environment so people can become super producers

I decided to go all-in. We got ourselves a big house for BearStudio’s headquarters. Not some boring corporate building in the Paris Business District, but a real house with a garden, workout gear, and enough space to breathe. I even insisted on having a garden, not because I’m some gardening guru but because pulling weeds between two stressful meetings is oddly therapeutic. Seriously, try it sometime.

The BearStudio HQ in France, you can even trade blue light for sunlight.

We also threw in a ton of material, including yoga mats and Gym bro stuff. The idea wasn’t to turn my devs into Zen monks or Olympic athletes. The idea was to break the damn routine. Even a small action to step out of the routine change, like gardening or stretching your stiff developer back can snap your brain out of autopilot mode. And it’s good for you.

And because I’m not a hypocrite, I made sure our remote policy was equally badass. Want to code from Lisbon for a month? Go for it. Feel like working from a beach in Bali? Send me a postcard. As long as the work gets done, deadlines aren’t missed and that you are present for critical meetings. I honestly don’t care if you’re coding from Mars if you come back from time to time to the office, for critical meetings.

I was convinced I had cracked the code. With such an amazing environment, my team would become unstoppable productivity machines, right?

The surprise of seeing people remain unhappy

Well, surprise, surprise. Even with all these options, some people still stuck to their miserable routines. They complained about feeling tired, burned out, and unhappy, yet refused to change anything. They ignored the garden, skipped yoga, and never took advantage of remote work. Instead, they kept eating crap, doom-scrolling, and complaining.

And yes, it drove me nuts. Not because I’m judging them (okay, maybe a little), but because the solution was literally right there. I had built a pretty damn good environment, with a lot of options to experience the work life differently. And yet some people still chose misery. It felt like giving someone a Ferrari and watching them complain about traffic while refusing to leave their driveway.

Me experiencing challenging moments and using my own resources

Turns out, breaking habits is hard and even when you’re the one who built the damn garden. I had to force myself to use my own setup. But every time I pushed through the resistance, I felt better. Not perfect, not enlightened but just better.

The environment helps, but it’s not magic. You still have to do the annoying, uncomfortable work of breaking your own habits. Nobody can do it for you, not even your boss who bought the yoga mats, especially when you are the boss.

The real limit is the individual and their psychology

Here’s the brutal truth: the real limit isn’t your job, your boss, or your clients. It’s you, your brain, your psychology, your stubborn habits: call it how you like, since personnel development trends messed up any of those terms, I’ll let you choose the one which suits your narrative.

Humans are wired to save energy, to stick to routines and even when those routines make us miserable. You can have the best environment in the world, but if you don’t actively choose to break your habits, nothing changes. Happiness isn’t something your boss can install like a new software update. It’s something you have to actively pursue, even when it’s annoying, uncomfortable, and challenging.

So, developers, entrepreneurs, humans behind screens: stop blaming external factors for your misery. You have more freedom than 99% of the working population. Use it.

Ask yourself honestly: what small thing can you change today to break the monotony? And then do it. Or don’t, and keep living like crap. Your call.

But if you choose to keep complaining without changing anything, don’t expect sympathy from me. Life’s too short to waste it glued to screens, eating garbage, and feeling miserable.

I read a very good book back in the days: The Obstacle Is The Way by Ryan Holiday. Let me drop an unsponsored Wikipedia link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Obstacle_Is_the_Way

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some weeds to pull.