Breakthrough

At the start of my coding journey I was full of inspiration and hope. However, as time went on I became frustrated, confused and felt like I had no direction.

The more I did, the more I compared myself to others. Comparing myself to others made me upset about my progress and my perceived inability to learn.

Yet, there was something different that kept me going and helped me ignore these negative feelings. In the past, I often gave up if I struggled with something. I didn’t have the grit or patience to keep going.

But this time, I learned something new that was very important. I learned that It's ok if you don’t get it the first time, you can keep trying. This simple idea is what kept me going and it’s what helped me have my first ‘breakthrough.’ The breakthrough was being able to understand something and move on.

Most of us think the older we get, the harder it is to learn. But that isn’t the case. It’s about your mentality. It's about being open to learn new things and willing to make mistakes.

It's also about not comparing yourself to others. Your only concern is you being able to learn and understand something for yourself. It’s something you can control and will lead to changes in your life.

Acting like you don’t know anything is probably one of the best mentalities to have. It primes your brain for learning and helps stop your preconceived notions preventing you from learning something new.

There were many times that I was annoyed when I didn’t understand something. But what I realised is that I won’t understand it straight away, it takes time. The more you can remind yourself of this the better.

This often helps give you perspective. It will give you the ability to assess things rationally and objectively. You can break things down into different parts, take breaks and approach things from different angles.

When something gets too hard, it’s more than ok to ask for help or to take a break from the problem. This will often give you a renewed perspective and help you work through the problem in your own way.

You will always have moments and days where you will feel frustrated and anxious. But always remind yourself that:
you are not going to understand something straight away,
you will understand it eventually, and
it will be rewarding when you do.

Hard work, persistence and believing in yourself is what leads to breakthroughs.