TL;DR
I'm in shock with the response I got from my article 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning, admitting my fears and how I was doing what I could to over come them. So many great people reached out and shared their same stories. It's why you should put yourself out there and take the risk.
The Story
So I recently posted a article 25 years of coding, and I'm just beginning, which talked about how I've been coding for 25 year, but had nothing to show for it. All due to the fact that I lived in fear of judgement, or self sabotaged.
Well the response was amazing. I could not believe how many people not only commented on it, but took the time to email me directly and let me know how much they related to my story, and how I inspired them to make a change themselves.
I was emotionally overwhelmed in a great way. It was so heartfelt to see so many people not only relating with my story, but also seeing a message in it to help them push forward.
I did my best to reach out to all of you, so thank you and if I missed your replying to your message, just know it meant a lot to me!
So here are some stats to what happen because I was willing to take a risk and put myself out there.
Before this, I'd never had any real traffic to any of my personal sites. They would sit there and collect dust and eventually I would stop caring about them.
From the one post, I was tweeted about 2 times (never been tweeted about before, so pretty exciting for me). I ended up going from 1 visitor a day (myself), to 3,585 new users on my site https://gidgitz.com, in just 4 days! I received 167 hearts, 39 unicorns, 82 bookmarks, gained over 150 new followers, and went from 4000 views on my post, to 42,436!!! 😳😳 I received 5 personal emails thanking me, and 2 giving me feed back on the site. I also received a Top 7 award on my profile on dev.to. And someone wrote an entire article based off of it! re: 25 years of coding
Talk about an overwhelming feeling when I saw all this. The most important part was knowing that my own struggles and talking about it, helped others. ❤️
So with all that being said, you need to take this as an example as to why it's so important that you don't put yourself in to a corner, with fear. Put yourself out there.
Update!
So it's been a few weeks and I gained more traction. It's been pretty awesome seeing the results of facing fears and doubts!
Motivation
I like what Ilona had to say about it. Check out her post! Overcome Fear
The Steps to take
It only take a small step to start, and then another one followed by another one, to go forward.
Here is a quick list of things you can do to help you get past your fears.
Start by commenting. Leave a comment on someone tweet, post, article, image or what every you use. Just comment, event if it's a "thanks for sharing!". This allows you to learn that it's ok to be part of something.
Write a simple blog entry, a post, a comment. Or sharing your thoughts, or experience like maybe an image of you and your dog. No matter the topic, someone will relate to you and you can start to grow a community.
If you're a developer or designer, then create something small and share it!
Read/view other peoples post and comment and share it with others!
Remind yourself that even if you help or impact 1 person, that is more than enough reason to share your idea/thoughts/opinions/feelings and so on.
DO IT NOW! Don't give yourself a "i'll wait til" because it sets you up for continuous procrastination. You can start now by commenting on this post and saying hi to me! Or share my stuff, which would be great appreciated. Or ask me to help you!
--DeChamp
Top comments (15)
I have been downed many times, because I use English as second language. It's not that poor, though. I earned IELTS 7 band two years ago. It happens that sometimes I do not understand an article or respond into comments in a way that others do not get it, and then the bad things begin. I have gone through imposter syndrome as well. It really hurts, but there is no way other than keep running.
Well the fact that you can speak more than one language is a awesome feat itself! So just let people know that you are speaking a secondary language, so they know. If they give you a bad time, ask them how many language they speak? :P Most of them only speak 1, so maybe it'll make them think twice!
This gave me waves of laughter. Yes, I'll implement your suggestion next time. Cheers!
I already commented on your other post but I am reaching ou here too to say thank you, you gave me a push to write my first post here in dev.to and push my work to github and start committing.
Thank you
That is so great!!!! What is the project so I can check it out?
thanks for sharing :D (I actually did what you suggested lol)... as many people test the same water, well me too. I was kinda dissatisfied with my current state, I dont know specifically what tho.. Reading yours and Ilona's just like pats on my back. So, thanks!
Congratulations on putting your fears aside!
Thank you, Jeff!
Not sure if you have noticed but you were trending on hacker news as well! Congrats I'm really glad your story helped all of these people 😊
Wow I had no clue! this is awesome. It's crazy to see the difference in responses from one site to the next. It seems a lot of people read it in a entire different light. Thanks for sharing!
Great work DeChamp! Thanks a lot for sharing your years of hard work and struggles with us. It really means a lot.
Thank you so much. I'm glad you could find something of value from it.
The other post really teach me something about personal project and other stuffs, thanks for sharing once again
Thank you for sharing your thoughts. It really helpful, though might seem obvious.
thanks for sharing!