We know that many of you have been taking the time during this pandemic to work on upskilling and Kathryn who runs the Python beginners group posted a link that resonated with her: What beginner’s mind is really like. In response Steve from CodeHub wrote the following which we thought was brilliant advise so we thought it was worth sharing for all of those feeling like you are scaling an impossible task:
- You will succeed and so it is worth pushing through. Learning to code is not about innate talent or any guff like that. It does require you to find a new way of thinking about processes, which is quite reductionistic, and if that’s a bit foreign to you at the moment, it will take extra time. But you will get there.
- Focussed learning is demanding and stressful and that stress comes in waves unique to you. So don’t worry about the fact that you’re sweating it. Do not compare yourself against other students to see if they too are finding it tough because they are likely to be at different points in the learning cycle. Be kind to yourself and recognize that you’re doing something challenging and give yourself rest periods.
- Setbacks are keys to the learning process. When you are blocked, do not worry that it means you are no good at this. Setbacks are a normal and important part of learning, indicating a missing and valuable line of thought. There are two ways to progress through a setback if you’re on your own. You can back off and try ‘circling’ the topic to see if a different approach fills in more information. Or you can try to push through with intensified focus: close off all distractions, grab a coffee, get comfy and re-read every part of the puzzle and force yourself to understand every sentence in its entirety. And also …
- Reach out for help from more experienced people, especially when you encounter setbacks. The ideal situation is when someone will set aside an hour or so to work through what you’re finding challenging. Sometimes just putting it into words can be enough. Sometimes you’ll need someone to patiently listen and then show you how to put your thoughts back on the rails.
CodeHub is a great place to get support and they have some brilliant members in there who appear to be simply sat waiting for you to pose them questions – if you haven’t joined up with them yet then go take a look at their slack channels here. We feel like saying that you get 30 days and if you’re not satisfied we’ll give you your money back. The thing is its free and we know that its brilliant so see you all in there…
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