Today marked about 6 years in front-end development and somewhere in the mid 30’s as a human that walks the earth. The real reason for this post is not some reason to give myself a shout out and dive into a giant cupcake while I rage to my favorite song. Instead, it is for a reflection that I had as I woke up today. As a developer, this “Impostor Syndrome” which I first read about from David Walsh who is also a really cool human I like to keep up with, really is a thing and something I relate too.
The Journey
This is not a life story just what I accomplished this year and feel pretty awesome about it. No, I did not create an app, get a new job, or even have that much to show off. I DID though learn a lot on my own time and in a fun way about JavaScript with especially just feeling more confident in the code I write. It all started with an online learning course I snagged from Udemy that was led by Angela Yu , and if you are new to development this is normal but then you move on to your own projects. I deployed some sweet action through GitHub, became kinda superhero-like on the command line, and helped a lot of my friends with just doing stuff on the internet.
Learning Is Not Always The Same
I found that as I came into this year that instead of focusing on a specific item to learn just enhancing me a person has allowed me to 10X my brainpower. What I mean is that I have wanted to learn guitar, draw better digitally and on paper, read more books, and those items that so many people would normally put off I put in focus. The result is I was using all different parts of my mental capacity kinda like a workout.
The Result
I put a little effort into each item every day and really just a little. By my birthday this year, I can say that I have a nice drawing journal, can navigate and use both Photoshop and Illustrator much better, have a pretty big comic selection, and can play some jazzy tunes. The caveat is I also have exploded in my front-end development skills. The little effort I also put into (deploying a signup form using the MailChimp API with Heroku, found the beauty of EJS for templating, Node.js, and polished up my overall JS skills, and became a master of the command line). Where I am going with this is if I just tried to focus on learning a new framework and that was it yes a project would have been done but that is where it would stop. Instead, I have leveled up all my skills in my personal life and ready to rock this next year the same.