[tvm]

Such behaviour can be hardcoded for certain types of personalities and is not bad per se. You're just trying to achieve something that isn't compatible with your personality.

I'd perhaps recommend doing an MBTI personality test (there's a bunch of them on the internet). This might help you to understand the mechanisms behind your behaviour and most importantly give you some hints how to make yourself useful.

I recommend to consider psychologist only as last resort.

[atemerev]

All right, let's assume I decided that software engineering career is not for me. What careers are compatible with constant novelty-seeking?

[funkyy]

Open a novelty blog and write about what you love? You can make money from advertising and Amazon affiliate links. You could make a living out of it rather quickly.

Other thing - become a remote freelancer. Get in to projects that last 1-3 months. You can make good money while doing what you like.

Also the short interest period on projects is not part of your personality, but it might be a stage. I had same thing, but turned out to be good for me. I used it to my advantage - I learned everything I could. I would jump from niche to niche making money along the way. My base would be marketing, from there I could freely move to tech, programming and consulting while making money. It took a while but I grew up from it. Now I am full stack startup owner - I do everything from programming, through customer service to marketing - and it is awesome.

[cryoshon]

I doubt the affiliate path is a way to actually making a living... it's been fiercely competitive since 2010.

[funkyy]

I mentioned affiliate as a way of monetizing blogging, there is many ways, affiliate through Amazon is just easy.

[_m8fo]

Consulting might be a good bet.

[atemerev]

I do consulting. 99% of consulting is persuading prospective clients that they need your consulting. Not that there's something wrong with it, but I am not that good at it...

[mindcrime]

Sounds like you're freelancing on your own? Maybe consider going to work as a consultant for a firm where somebody else manages the sales and admin stuff, and you can just do the technical side? That's the way I work, FWIW. The downside is that I don't have total control over what I'm working on, and I probably make less money than what I could make doing it on my own. But I don't have to worry about sales, book-keeping, etc. (Of course, I have to do that stuff for my side-project company, but that's a separate story).

[atemerev]

Applied for some positions like that, waiting for response. :)

[vlehto]

This was my first thought too. MBTI is not considered "scientific", by psychologists. But r/ENTP in reddit is filled with people who seem to suffer from extreme novelty addiction.

Other possibility would be ADHD or some weird version of autism. ADHD would often have difficulties to stay focused even in new things. Autistic are often very picky about their interests and get easily bored about everything else. Which isn't exactly neophilia, but might appear like it.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ENTP

[tvm]

Yes, it's not "scientific", but generally categorizes people with similar behaviour quite well. If you know your classification then there's a fair chance that there are more people that have same problems as you and gives you chance to read about their experiences and solutions.