How to overcome the fear of coding
As the final hours of 2023 approached, I sat down after enjoying the last meal of the year, gazing at the moon through the windows. Contemplating the entire year, it revealed itself as one of the most worrying and depressing yet strangely special. Being away from family and friends, I found myself grappling with fear, worries, and anxiety alone, much like every other expat.
Throughout my career, my greatest workplace apprehension was the fear of coding. Initially venturing into Linux systems, transitioning to administration, and eventually finding my path in DevOps and Cloud engineering, the desire to learn a programming language never surfaced. The persistent subconscious whisper, ‘You are not a developer,’ kept me anchored.”
Despite having authored numerous automation scripts and architected many cloud adoptions, the prospect of delving into development always left me lacking in confidence. While I acknowledge that excelling in IT doesn’t necessarily hinge on pure software development, I find myself confronting a longstanding fear.
The desire to create something from the ground up has persisted, yet opportunities never presented themselves, nor did I actively seek them in the past.
Career mistakes and lessons:
Procrastination on Skill Development: I always waited thinking that when the project demands a developer skillset, then I would upskill myself. It was just escaping from reality and shutting myself from the evolving IT.
Being In-consistent: Self-motivated and embarking on something was easy for me, as I was a self-driven man. But was never consistent, and this made all the learning journeys incomplete and made me feel incompetent and apprehensive.
Distracted and Disoriented: Working on different projects in different domains with different technologies kept me distracted from focusing on and mastering a specific domain or technology. Work kept me busy and years passed by.
Blame Game: During my self-retrospection, I always blamed my employers or managers for not fully utilizing my potential and giving me the opportunities to indulge in programming.
Confidence Boosters: Making Changes That Matter
Focused Skill Development: Identified the tools and technologies that could be inevitable for me to excel (not survive) as a Platform Engineer(as of now) engaged in the technical side. Once identified, I enrolled in certification programs and persistently pushed myself. I chose the Python-Django framework to proficiently understand the core of development.
Enrolled in Paid Online Training: I enrolled in Kodekloud, CodewithMosh, and Coursera to improve my DevSecOps/Tools skills and programming skills. I realized that investing in your education is not an expense and I have a strong conviction that every hour spent on these platforms would contribute to my overall success.
Consistent and Showing up: Being more consistent than before by daily allocating the out-of-office hours and weekends for learning and working on the grey areas helped me to gain confidence. The sense of achievement from successfully coding a module and pushing it to GitHub has become my new source of dopamine. Even if it’s just for 30 minutes, I commit to writing a few lines of code, reassuring myself that I’m continually learning beyond the scope of my professional responsibilities.
Focus: I invested a lot of time contemplating and channeling my focus areas into Programming, though I am uncertain whether learning a programming language may help at this time of my career, I am determined to conquer my fear. Delving into my subconscious, I find a newfound ability to grasp intricate programming concepts. This journey allows me to unlearn and relearn foundational basics that I may have overlooked in previous years.
I am still a work in progress. But there is light that I see at the end of the tunnel if I keep focusing and channeling my energy and time toward learning to fight my fears.
May you courageously face your fears and achieve your dreams in 2024.
“Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your inner voice”
-Steve Jobs
