What sharing my journey has taught me

Aloha folks 🤙🏽

This time I want to share some thoughts about this whole developer/coding community and what I learned by sharing my journey and connecting with more people.

I basically started my frontend journey in late 2018 and for one year I think I didn’t do much except for learning as much as I can and becoming somewhat good in what I did. And, as I had no knowledge and experience at this time at all, this needed all my focus and time. Of course, I had this obligatory instagram account, but neither the quality, nor the content was something special or a bigger idea behind it.

Somewhat after one year into all of this, I already knew there is a bigger community out there and people that are sharing their journey, what they are doing, learning and making. So I decided to try this out as well. Using instagram I just started sharing what I am learning and engaging with this community. I also tried to start a blog around this time, but I didn’t have the discipline nor the skills to make this a good (looking) one 🙄

Nevertheless, I learned a ton of different things from putting myself and my journey out there, and I want to thank everyone that connected with me, inspired me or helped me here. It has been amazing to experience all of this. I want to list some of the important things I learned:

– If you start putting out content, you will probably start to compare. Compare likes, followers quality, maybe everything. And this is challenging, but learn not doing this. You shouldn’t do this just because of numbers anyway, but if you compare your first tries with somebody that’s focused on high quality images and 3 years of experience you will be discouraged pretty quickly. You should do this because 1) it’s fun for you to do it and 2) you will gain connections, opportunities and extra skills for your future self. Try to be somewhat consistent and authentic, and don’t try to be someone else or mimic specific things or styles. You will automatically increase the connections and engagement then. The key here is patience. Also, this was helpful for my entire life. “Comparing is the death of happiness”. As a developer you often think you are not good enough. Be aware you will likely experience this imposter syndrome and work on your mindset so this will not impact you in a bad way.

– There are and will be always be people that are further and better than you. This will never change and shouldn’t be a reason you are not motivated or discouraged. Everyone started from 0. But, no matter at which point you are, there are always people that are not as far on their journey as you are. Or they are learning different things and are interested in your stuff. Anyway you can always help people. At every point in my journey, I could help someone with my knowledge, and this is absolutely worth it. Also, if you are honest and friendly you can always ask for help and most people will give you advice. Just don’t waste someones time 😉

– I learned that social media has a big potential. Knowing how and what works will become an important skill in the future. Especially if you’re in a business environment or even if you’re just building a personal brand around yourself so people know who you are and what you do. Reaching a lot of people online can always be beneficial. For me this and meeting some absolutely awesome humans has made this a really fun journey and I enjoy it a lot. As a creative person, I really can understand why so many people are becoming ‘creators’ and putting out that much content and helpful resources.

So, for me, putting myself out there and sharing what I do has absolutely benefited both my developer journey as well as my personal life. Thanks again for this amazing community where you can connect with so many awesome people.

That’s it for now, see you. Sometime. Somewhere. 🤙🏽