This is an article about my journey through the 100Devs BootCamp. At the time of publishing, I am 1/3rd of the way through this program.
March 14, 2022. 5:34 AM.
I collapsed in my chair, massaged my eyes, and took a sigh of relief. “We had the logs, and we carried them all,” I muttered under my breath - proud of myself for managing through the 9.5 hours of the super review session.
This is a different me. A couple of months ago, I’d be asleep by this time. Hoping to wake up early and have a productive day, yet knowing that it was unlikely to happen. A raging introvert content with where life was taking me. While I knew I wanted a change, I had no real drive, purpose, or motivation to plan out my path.
The present me does not wake up like an accident. My days are more deliberate now. I have a six-hour block fixed in my daily schedule on Trello - divided into 40/20 Pomodoro sessions. My day revolves around this six-hour block.
I am privileged that I have a remote job at the moment. I work as a freelance content creator and am able to maintain a healthy balance between my work, study, and life.
Realization of my privileges, and the lack of, is one of the many things I have learned in this journey. It is something that Leon, my teacher at 100Devs, reinforces. The concept of everyone not being equally lucky in terms of their learning capacity, knowledge, time, and wealth is one that we all have at the back of our minds, but for me, it was not until the last two months that I was consciously putting to use.
Now when I come across a social media post about a cool project or about landing a job, I don’t get discouraged or feel envious. I am not aware of the privileges they had resulting in their success. I take their achievements as goals that I can achieve as well, and until I do, I am happy to cheer for them.
I understand that as long as I am honest with myself and do justice to my privileges, chances are high that I will be successful.
Over the last two months, I have gone through the grind of learning HTML, CSS, and now, some Javascript. We have focused on nailing the fundamentals down. In the process, I have created multiple websites that are now a part of my portfolio, which will be used to get a freelance client by the end of the month. The pieces are coming together.
This super review was a flashback of how far we have come. I have learned almost every single day. And when I have not, I have relaxed - deliberately. I say deliberately because I have approached my breaks from learning as a chance to re-energize and come back to it with the same valor I had on day one.
What started as a journey to become a full-stack web developer, has become a journey of discovering myself and overcoming my weaknesses.
I mentioned the realization of privileges earlier. There is so much more to add. The journey has influenced the way I learn, the way I go about my day, the way I meet people, and even the way I sleep.
It has forced me to get out of my comfort zone and tasked me with challenges that seemed insurmountable just a few weeks ago. One such challenge was networking with other people in tech. As an introvert, networking was my worst nightmare. Yet here I am a month into networking and I have had 24 meetings already, with my calendar full until the end of April.
I certainly didn’t expect this change when I started on this journey. However, these are the skills that will, perhaps, be my most important takeaways no matter where this journey takes me.
The cornerstone of my growth in this journey has been the 100Devs community. Everyone who has gone through a struggle and has experienced failing will know how important a support base is. This is true when it comes to learning to code as well.
The community has people from all walks of life and all ages, who are willing to give their input and help others out, with empathy and kindness. It made me realize that I am not alone. That there are many that are in the same muck as me and that there are many who have made it out and are now successful in their career.
I try to hang out and jump in to help as much as I can as well. Even when I don't feel like actively participating, just going through the discussions and resonating with them provides me with encouragement.
Not every day will be my day. There are days when nothing works and then there are days when I don’t even feel like trying. At such times, I have to use every ounce of my mental strength to get myself in line with my daily schedule. And yet, there has been a day when I was unable to.
I tell myself that this is okay and ensure that I give myself the grace to fail and to get up again. Throughout the day, I make use of positive affirmations and remind myself of my small wins. And when I feel low, I visit the celebrations channel of our community and browse through the success stories to remind myself why I am doing this. And why I need this.
I fear that if I let my discipline go loose, I will fall back into the abyss from which I have given my heart and soul to come out. I have promised myself that I will land a job in the industry by the end of the year. There is no way that I know what will happen by then. Maybe my dream is too far off the horizon. But all I can do is try and believe.
As I write the conclusion of this post, we have had our Sunday office hours. It’s been a week since that super review session. I have set up my Trello for the upcoming week and will now head to the bed, knowing that it’s already made - my guaranteed win of the day.
Until next time.