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Briggs Elsperger for The Odin Project

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Mindset

Managing your mindset while working through TOP is extremely important, more so than following any other single strategy. The first few sections of the curriculum (the ones about mindset) do a fine job covering how to manage the difficulty, and it can be beneficial to reread those sections when running into difficult times.

Get Gritty

There are many technical exercises involved when learning to program; they can be overwhelming and often make a learner feel as if they’re hitting roadblocks over and over. This feeling is something everybody doing the course should expect. The countermeasure for giving up when things get rough is grit, something every prospective programmer MUST develop. Read about grit here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grit_(personality_trait).
Things will get hard, so spend some time with the articles at the beginning of TOP and get comfortable with encountering difficult things.

Take the time you need

Avoid rushing through the curriculum; rushing is a surefire way to burn out. Using the Pomodoro technique can help you stay on task while ensuring that you take the breaks you need. Hard deadlines should be avoided as well, as they will make skipping and rushing very attractive. Moving through the curriculum without having the prerequisite understanding of the previous topics will make each subsequent lesson more and more difficult to learn properly as you dive deeper into the course.

Top comments (7)

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obstsalat98 profile image
Emre

I read the book "atomic habits". It helped me to have a better mindset. I recommend it to people that feel like they procrastinate. Also to people that do not stick with an activity.

Even if you do not have mentioned problems, I am sure it can help anyone trying to change one or two things in their lives.

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Andrea Raccagni

Fantastic advice. Trying to get stick to it! Love TOP.

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Birdie Ou • Edited

I got burnt out toward the end of last year. Now I really understand what "Take the time you need" means.

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Manny

Really good read, I can attest to the second paragraph. I tried learning to program last year and was just rushing through everything and it only led me to being more confused down the road. I'm learning to take my time now and not setting any due dates for myself.

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Hongbo Wei • Edited

Growth mindset is the king.

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vinit gurjar

Grit was defined as "perseverance and passion for long-term goals

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Alex Cordos

Just started TOP. I am fixing my mindset because I feel the need to memorize and It doesn't work like that so thank you for this guide ! Keep coding, loving and gaming folks !