How do you build personal confidence, how do you lend confidence to others?
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How do you build personal confidence, how do you lend confidence to others?
For further actions, you may consider blocking this person and/or reporting abuse
Renan Ferro -
Mohd Amir -
rathod ketan -
dev.to staff -
Oldest comments (43)
Don't over think. It makes you and your program ugly and sad. Also your team mates get mad if you think over something this much.
"Simple" is the key.
JDIS (Just Do It Stupid) principle bruh, we need to follow that.
I actually just looked at an old project I built last term at school, and while it isn't much to gauk at professionally, it reminds me that at one point, I never thought I could build it. Now I am writing code that connects to a SQL database, designing GUIs, and writing Java with the confidence that I can do this.
When I try to instill confidence in others, I like to learn what they know by getting them to explain to me what they're stuck on. My purpose is to show them that they likely understand more than they think they do but aren't progressing because they're stuck thinking they'll never progress. It usually gets the gears turning in their minds or at least gives them some pep talk.
Looking back on old things is a big big big one for me. Just thinking about where I used to be and how far I've come since then is always a big one.
One main thing I realized one day when I was struggling with learning c++ data structures is how long I went practicing c++ without even knowing what a pointer was (this was junior high and early high school). It's interesting to realize how easy the concept is and yet how hard I thought it was back then.
Totally agree
don't think about it, just follow your passion, confidence will follow as well
Accepting the fact that "Its ok to not know everything" and "I can learn it and do it" gives me confidence.
Pretty sure it does to others too
That first one is a big relief if you feel overwhelmed (especially since there are always new things coming out that suddenly get hyped up as "the future of X development"). It really is ok to not know everything. Heck, it's ok to use (and like using) a toolset that's a popular subject of ridicule.
To build it first you have to commit many mistakes, and learn from them. What you've got to be sure is to learn from those mistakes to become a proficient and confident coder C:
When it comes tackling things that I might not have immediate confidence in, I try to remind myself that often trying something, even if it is wrong, is the best way to learn whether I need to try something else. The sooner that course correction can be made, the easier it is to build confidence.
When it comes to code, I try to build tight feedback cycles into everything I do. I find the more I can get into the habit of making a small change and quickly seeing the result of that, the better my development cadence and therefore the easier it is to gain confidence in a path.
To lend confidence to others, I try to encourage both of the aforementioned things: fail fast to learn quickly and find ways to make feedback loops tighter.
@jess 's weekly wins threads are great for that 😄
High 5 people who had solved a difficult programming problem that they had spent hours or days on it
I really enjoy building the confidence of others. This is how I shape my developer relations program and advocacy work that I do. Talks, tutorials, blogs, etc. should distill complex information down to a digestible level without dumbing it down. I often introduce new language or jargon to folks first so that they can learn how to "speak the language" before trying to write code. From there I help them scope out small, manageable tasks. Confidence is easier to find with a sense of completion. Then you celebrate the completion and move to the next task.
Repetition and practice is how I build confidence. I heard once that you need to do something 10,000 times to master it. When you have solved a problem many times then solving it and similar problems will come naturally.
Helping others is harder but showing others ways to do things without belittling them could help. Confidence is an individual state and cannot be given, only nurtured in my opinion.
Firstly, developers always can do better than they are aware they can. I am one example of this.
I once took a project I didn't even understand properly. I only just told myself "I will sort it out". And I did just that. I delivered the project and got a five star rating.
Reminiscing now, I just see how much I underrated myself. And that gives me so much chill pills. I've been too harsh on myself. I was my own enemy.
Confidence, in a way, is self-esteem and self-trust.
It means you are aware of your knowledge, skills and surroundings: there will be people specialized in this sub-domain, others with a specific language, and others might prefer the human side of things, but everyone is an expert in its domain, if you know that you are the man of the situation for what you do then you are good, if it is not the case, find what makes you happy and what you enjoy to do around the Dev practice.
It also is about the reactions you have when an exterior event occurs, if somebody is judging you by what you do or what you are (of course it's about the person judging because it is rude), your confidence shows itself in the way you react to said judgement. The less you care about judgements, the more you gain in confidence.
Regarding confidence to others, I'm pretty simple: you already gained my trust and you are someone important and very interesting, from this point you can only lose it (but don't worry, it's hard to lose my trust). In lending confidence, I listen to the other, give credit where it is due and rightfully speak about various subjects besides developing and code, because I believe people get confident when they speak about themselves, not about what they do !
We observe that a healthy culture and good tools you can rely on are the key to the developer's success.
If you are interested to learn more, you can check out these two articles:
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