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If I’ve learnt anything over the last week, it’s that I don’t like floats. At all. In fact, I find them about as appealing as being pulled into a drain by Pennywise. And I can guarantee that if he got to me like he got to Georgie, there’d be no floating going on down there. Ever.
Learning to code is funny. Funny, but hard. And I mean funny in the sense that it’s an absolute emotional rollercoaster – not something that teams well with anxiety and self-doubt, at all. But here I am… dragging myself through the depths of the internet as if my life depends on it.
I definitely got a reality check this week, and it hit me hard. I stepped away from ‘relearning’ what I already knew, and I was introduced to some new CSS properties. That beaming confidence I had in the beginning of my journey was thrown out the window, and when my classes took me through something I just couldn’t wrap my head around, I melted into a self-deprecating puddle of goo. I started thinking ‘is this really for me? If I can’t understand this concept so early into my dev journey, am I really going to be able to make it? What’s going to happen when I get to Javascript or PHP if a single CSS property is giving me this much grief?!’.
My key takeaway from this five-day breakdown? It’s going to be okay.
Even the most incredible developers or programmers had to start somewhere, and I can guarantee that there were things that just didn’t click for them. And to this day, it still happens to the best of them. Everyone has bad days/weeks/months. It’s normal – give yourself a break, step away, regroup, and go back to it with a positive attitude. Don’t let yourself feel defeated and wallow in misery for days, or you’ll end up feeling a lot more behind than you thought possible.
As it turns out, a lot of developers aren’t overly fond of floats (yay, I’m not alone!). And it’s that pesky property that has caused me a week’s worth of anguish. But, I’m glad I went through it, especially so early into my journey. I’ve learnt a lot about how to manage myself and my motivation when I’m feeling defeated, and I can guarantee that throughout my journey learning development, or throughout my career as a developer, I’m going to experience it a lot. Sometimes things just won’t work. But I can’t deliver something late to a client because I stayed up all night feeling sorry for myself and questioning my life choices. Get it together, girl. You got this.
Just yesterday, I finally experienced first-hand how important it is to have a community or network of developers that you turn to for advice and a nice, long vent. I’m lucky I’ve managed to meet some really wonderful people through working here at LegRoom, and over the internet (thank you Reddit and Instagram). Having that group of people to air grievances like it’s Festivus, or to cheer you on as if you’re about to dethrone Trump is invaluable.
This post went from zero to one hundred real quick. And I hate that it’s been a lot of whinging, but I think it’s important for beginners to know that it’s normal to go through this – you’re not alone, don’t give up. We’re like this because we’re passionate and we want to succeed, and that’s a wonderful thing.
I’ve got myself set up for a weekend of fun, and I can’t wait to get stuck into it… I’ve planned out a new approach to learning, and I’m excited to be able to dedicate two full days to catching up, being patient with myself, and (hopefully!) finally educating myself on how to work with floats.
Despite not getting much development done this week, I got through a lot of reading, and I learnt one major lesson – don’t sweat the small stuff. Not everything is going to make sense immediately, and that’s okay.
Remember when I said learning to code was an emotional rollercoaster? I wasn’t lying.
I’ll be tweeting more about my journey over on my personal Twitter (@murphytrueman) – let’s share our experiences and chat all things dev!
