Lost a LOT of motivation :'( &Feeling lost

Remember that you will always need to consult documentation, doesn’t matter how much you have already done
A programming language is not something that you can learn in its entirety*, have a good dictionary (MDN, for example, or just google things, a page from MDN will be often in the first few results, or stackoverflow, or w3school) at your side and enjoy the journey

* programming languages are fluid things, new features pop up often… or also new libraries, or you may be stuck with a program with parts in a different language… and they are just massive

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I’m an older programmer on here. I have been programming desktop database driven applications and later Web based for about 20 years. Last year I got laid off as a VB.Net programmer. There is not that much for VB anymore so I have been using the down time to learn C# and refresh my knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I have used those technologies for a few years, but only as needed for the job and leveraged by Bootstrap so there are gaps that I’m working here to fill. I may want to take a front-end position at some point.

Anyway, over all that time I have always been having to learn something new and am at it again. The truth is, for me at least, learning sucks. Endless reading of CSS rules and such is boring. The cure I find is to learn as much of the basics as you need and then get going on a project. Find an interesting tutorial and then after completing it make it your own by adding more to it. You also have to remember that no one remembers and retains all this stuff. It’s constantly changing and new frameworks are emerging all the time. Which is why Google is your friend. Learn enough to get started on a project and Google the rest of the way.

If you make programming your career, you will always be learning something. The trick will be doing just enough to grasp the concepts and knowing how to find your answers. Motivation comes with having an achievable end goal in mind and making incremental, but noticeable progress each day. I don’t recommend taking a break, that will accomplish nothing. Just find something interesting to work on, set daily goals and ease up on yourself.

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Alright. I see :)!

Good luck on your side and thank you for the wisedom :slight_smile:.
I will “find something interesting to work on, set daily goals and ease up on yourself”. Actually I’m already doing that right now :slight_smile:.

-Tech.

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One last thing.
If you’re looking for a tool that gives you better visualizations of CSS rules, the Web Inspector in the dev tools of the Firefox Developer Edition are amazing, visual representations of grid, flexbox, and the plain box model. Also the new “Diffs” tab is a great way to see how you changed the design from the original CSS file(s)/rules.
Download – https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/developer/all/?q=English%20(US)
Blog about version 65 – https://hacks.mozilla.org/2019/01/new-in-firefox-devtools-65/

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Thanks I used the dev tools but didn’t know about Diffs!

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Motivation isn’t fuel, it is only a catalyst. It is not and should not be the only thing that sustain your action.

You have to hold yourself accountable to accomplish things. It’s the same for anything in life. You are responsible for your own actions and you bear those consequences. There isn’t always this magical surge within you that propels you to work, sometimes, the promise you made to yourself has to be enough. That is the mindset you need to have to keep yourself on track. It’s a grind, even if it is something you love.

It’d be better if you do some self-reflection to sort out why you are not motivate or why you are. Literally write it down if you have to. When you want to code, or learn about coding, what prompted you to do so? What do you accomplished when you are motivated? When you stop or choose to do something else rather than learning or code, what is the main reason? What excuses are you making to yourself? When you identify reasons of your actions, it becomes easier to modulate and optimize your behavior.

If big vague goal seems unreachable, then break it up into concrete reachable goal. Instead of “I want to start free lancing in 2019”, do “I want to replicate the ESPN home page layout with CSS Flexbox in a week”, or “I want to create a reusable calendar component using React in a month”. Further break down these goals into tasks you can check off, like gather assets, read this post on CSS Tricks, create basic mock layout…etc.

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Hello, I have the same problem , how old are u ?

Hello. I am 17 what about you?

Thanks a lot a lot a lot for those smart and accurate words. You are opening my eyes :slight_smile:. I am taking notes and a screenshot to keep that with me just in case I need to re-read it :slight_smile:. Also that is so true when you said it I realized it makes sense: “Motivation isn’t fuel, it is only a catalyst”.

-Tech.

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I also recommend #100daysofcode. Posting your progress every day on Twitter and being in that community really helps keep you on track.

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Hey! Still didn’t get into it I am working on a product landing page that I designed before coding :slight_smile:.
Still keeping it in my mind :slight_smile: and bookmark :slight_smile:.

Thanks again to everyone!

-Tech.

"Motivation is like taking a bath. Once is not enough."

Spend time regularly to remind yourself of your goals especially your short term goals -
Are they written down? You should have multiple goals: short term, achievable in weeks; mid-term that may take several smaller goals to achieve; long term - achievable in perhaps 6 to 10 months; long term that should take several months to years - achievable in maybe a year or even 2 years. Focusing on the things you can accomplish soon is how you stay motivated.

"How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time."

Don’t focus on becoming a web developer, focus on the next thing on the list. “Web Developer” will happen whether you want it to or not if you just keep putting one foot in front of the other.

Lots of good advice and thoughts here. I’ll leave one more. You have the benefit of time. Take advantage of it. It is your primary form of currency. You won’t ever have more time than you do today. Use it.

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I’ll take notes! :slight_smile:

Thanks a lot :slight_smile:.

-Tech.

Hi Tech,

Those frontend challenges don’t have to perfected into the tiniest detail. They have been designed for beginners. I somtimes see product landing and tribute pages that take my breath away, so beautiful. You don’t have to be able to do that just yet. These guys have been at it longer than just a few months (whatever they may tell you) Just get those challenges finished (even if your pages are not dancing around like puppies in a field) and go on to javascript. See what that does for you. Later, take some CSS course again. You will have forgotten stuff and you will need to refresh. (or rework the old challenges) And later do that again. Learn, get it done, move on. Come back later. As you do different things, you will find out what really suits you. (I strongly suspect you will enjoy JS a lot more) By the way, I hate CSS. Nothing ever works the way it is supposed to. I believe it is a separate talent. Talent! You have to be able look with the eye of a designer, understand the user and keep the guys at the backend happy. You have to be a stylist and yet functional, then you have to find ways to express that in code. It is extremely difficult.

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Firstly, keep up the good work. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Perhaps set small achievable goals.

Secondly, your post actually proves something to me. I am trying to suggest (not here) about setting up a group, for people who are learning via sites such as this. A safe place to meet, where you can get help from other learners, encouragement from others We all start off with good intentions, get stuck and have no where to turn, forums are great, but not quite the same as face to face meet.

We all need that helping hand sometimes to pull us up and say keep going.

Just keep going with what you are doing, take smaller steps, and above all have fun and enjoy it.

Hope this helps

Paul

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Well I did gain my motivation back I believe :slight_smile:. And I believe it is just a question of pulling throught the hard times. But you spoke some raw truth

takes notes

So thanks :slight_smile:

Hey Paul! You spoke some thruth too! :slight_smile: I have those places where I meet people but not for motivation for help. Try googling Kevin Powell and Caler Edwards discord communities :).
I am sure you will love it!

Thank you
-Tech.

I’m a little late to this but try not to feel guilty for burning out, sometimes it happens.

Imo the best thing you can do while you feel like this is to do anything code related that you might enjoy, and at least for 30 minutes a day. You’ll feel better about yourself and you might even get a project done.

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I highly recommend reading this article to not loose motivation - don’t give up and you will see results

https://www.thinkful.com/blog/why-learning-to-code-is-so-damn-hard/

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I like the idea that “skills trump passion in the quest for work you love” and I recommend the book “so good they can’t ignore you” by Cal Newport

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