Have You Ever Stepped Back to Move Forward?

Describe a pivotal point in your career or life journey that required you to take a step back in order to leap forward? What insights did you gain from this experience?


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[Prakirth Govardhanam]

Story of my life

Due to stagnation and burn-out from my PhD career in Pharmaceutical Sciences, I dropped out. I looked up for careers that would help me grow and fulfill my potential. I realized software development as an option. Even though I am from an engineering background, I don't have a traditional Computer Science degree. Took a year to decide while learning Finnish and did 2 internships. Fell in love with problem solving, cloud development and the adrenaline on wrapping up a project. But I had to learn the fundamentals first. Hence, I started my journey since March 2023.

Insights

• Patience & Emotional balance, the 2 utmost skills I needed to survive pre- and post-PhD burnout ❤️
• Prioritize time for hobbies, without which another burn-out was imminent 😌
• Visualize final target, plan monthly targets, break them down to weekly to-dos 📒
• Always make time for Family, without whose support I would not have the luxury of studying software development 6-8 hours/day 🙇
• Keep Moving Forward, no matter what (job application rejections/financial burdens/zero social life...)
• One Step and One Task at a time, due to information overload I tried multi-tasking and failed multiple times 😄
• Find good people and platforms like DEV.to, it did really help me, emotionally 🌞

Find Undying Inspiration

• Martin Luther King Jr.

"If you can't fly, then run. If you can't run, then walk. If you can't walk, then crawl, but whatever you do, you have to keep moving."

Yeah, I am aware of the fun version on Firefly as well 😄

• Rocky Balboa(2006) (1:40 - 2:22)

"Let me tell you something you already know. The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It's a very mean and nasty place and I don't care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. You, me, or nobody is gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain't about how hard ya hit. It's about how hard you can get it and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. That's how winning is done! Now if you know what you're worth then go out and get what you're worth. But ya gotta be willing to take the hits, and not pointing fingers saying you ain't where you wanna be because of him, or her, or anybody! Cowards do that and that ain't you! You're better than that!"

[francheese9289]

I love this! How did you start your studying? Self taught, bootcamp, CS degree?

[Prakirth Govardhanam]

Thank you @francheese9289 😊
I have been self-studying all the way. I joined a vocational college for some guidance but apparently their curriculum and guidance was specific to high-school graduates. So, had to come up with my own curriculum. Right now learning MERN stack from Full Stack open course

[Shai Almog]

I'm actually in this exact spot at the moment, when you're founder and CEO anything else you do is a step back. I'm OK with taking a lower grade job than my last job, but I get automatic rejections from HR because my experience is so vast and "all over the place". I typically ace interviews but if I can't get to that stage...

I have a job offer as a CTO. But it would be a bit of a lateral move and also a downgrade in salary (a CTO needs to lead by example also in salary).

I also have an option to start a new company with a partner. Both choices would be difficult.

[Calin Baenen]

I mean, I've rebuilt my entire website from scratch two or three times – and I am doing it again to integrate Spark.