Going into the Flatiron bootcamp, I was extremely excited and wanted to just eat up every piece of knowledge and skill I could get my hands on. However, as a newbie, my approach to making it through the bootcamp went through some important changes. It's not just typos and code logic that a new developer has to wrestle with, but also some mental aspects. This article covers the first of three.
Temper your competitive mindset
There are some people who straight up say, “it's not a competition, never compare yourself to others.” However, from my own reflection and seeing how others behave, I think we all have some level of competitive energy, and it can help push us to be our best. It's just a matter of how we harness that energy and our awareness of it.
Mistake:
In the beginning of the bootcamp, I had this mindset of “I need to be the best, I need to outshine everyone in order to be noticed and valid.” This caused me to have expectations that were too high for myself, leading to constant disappointment and led to my second mistake, overworking. What I found out later, was that some of the students had already been coding for years, or had gotten a degree in computer science and had already had developer jobs! Of course, their projects would reflect that.
Improvement:
According to the Merriam Webster dictionary, to temper something means to “to dilute, qualify, or soften by the addition or influence of something else”. Competitive energy can be a really good thing as long as it's not the only thing driving you. So what can we temper competition with?
For me, I chose a progress oriented mindset. Essentially, anytime I learned or implemented a new functionality or even a single line of code that worked, no matter how small, I chose to see it as a positive step worthy of celebration. It's turned into a habit now, and I feel much more satisfied and proud of my effort and work this way.
Another approach I used to temper my competitiveness was focusing on my own internal goals unrelated to what others were doing. I have a dream of making some games and releasing them online on a website I create. Anytime I learn something that contributes to that, I get an endorphin release.
Now when I reflect on my competitive spirit, I think on how I want my projects to look on par with others and I want people to have a little wow moment when seeing my work, but their reactions don’t weigh on me as heavily since I am driven by multiple facets.
What approaches do you have regarding your developer work? Where do competition, progress, and goals fit into your mindset? Let me know in the comments : )
Read Part 2
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