#Seeing Progress

Today’s learning experience.

“The reason why people give up so fast is because they tend to look at how far they still have to go, instead of how far they have gotten.”

I’m extremely guilty of this.

I consistently create new projects and plans, looking for new ways to formulate a plan to get to where I want to go.

It’s stressful.

I have to start making sure that I look at how much I’ve accomplished in such a short amount of time.

I had a conversation with a Bloc student who JUST started two days ago.

I reached out to him, told him if he had any questions or just wanted to talk about his experience, I’d be happy to talk.

His question: “I know it’s only been two weeks, but I am having a hard time connecting the dots and seeing how everything works together.”

My answer?

“Well, any time you learn a new skill, or language, it will feel awkward at first. As you have more experience and practice, it will start to feel more comfortable and natural. It’s like learning a spoken language. Take Spanish, for example! You can read books and take courses, but unless you get out there and make yourself look and feel stupid stumbling over words to speak to native Spanish speakers, you wont REALLY learn.

‘The common trait in people that we have noticed are best at learning a language is that they have no trouble sounding stupid.’ – Luis von Ahn, CEO - duoLingo

Now apply it to programming! Unless you go out and code really bad, terrible code, you wont get better.

Your bad code WONT work, and you’ll be forced to figure out why,and then you’ll learn.”

Me! I said that. Looking back on my own advice was probably the easiest way for me to appreciate how far I’ve come, because Ruby, Rails, and HTML have become way more comfortable and natural than when I started.