DEV Community: David Salomón

WTF are soft skills?

David Salomón — Wed, 31 Mar 2021 20:56:54 +0000

🏋️ The way we know how skills work

You prepare yourself for technical skills, you practice every day the programming language you prefer to get a job in the future, or maybe have a freelance job, or what about having a promotion if you get that certification that's very demanding in the company you work for. Those technical skills are called hard skills due to the knowledge you need to have to perform a specific task.

Most of us want to specialize in some areas of knowledge, if you're reading this blog, it's for sure you're interested in technology and you know that there are a lot of fields in which you can specialize.

The way we measure technical skills is by having a certification issued by a well-known company or institution, a score you have in a test or exam at college, or your performance at work that is known as a metric or KPI.

😳 Non-technical skills (?)

It's easy to define what skills are in terms of benefits, their measurability, their specificity, and how companies can give you a credential or certification that'll work as an exposure of your performance, however, there's a different type of skill that's quite complicated to define.

These are non-technical skills, in a nutshell, they are abilities that help us to relate with other people.

We call those skills: Soft skills because it's the opposite of hard skills, some others call them People skills because that's the only field where you are going to use them by building positive relationships.

📕 Characteristics

In most of my blog posts, I talk about knowledge and practice in JavaScript or technology in general, but now, I want to focus on these types of skills to deeply understand their use case and apply that to our career.

So, it's important to define their characteristics to differentiate them out of technical skills.

✅ Applicable in any field

When you have a technical skill (and I will use programming as an example from now on) you can only use that skill in the companies that require it. If you apply as a chef in a big restaurant, of course, you're not gonna code, you won't even use a computer there or the other way around, maybe a chef won't know how to use a computer if he's hired by Google as a software engineer. That's incompatible.

However, when it comes to soft skills, you can apply them to a big restaurant (I say restaurant because I used to work as a cook some time ago) and also at Google, for example, I can mention leadership. If you cook in the restaurant, that doesn't limit you to build a team and create a new dish or guide them on how to prepare 200 dishes in 1 hour for an event.

The same applies if I work at Google, leadership will be useful if you need to deploy certain features, but there are some insights you need to take from before doing it. In that case, you build a team, gather feedback and start working on the deployment of the feature or project.

Even though it's a different context, the leadership skills are valid and you can apply the building-team task in any place you go (or work and I will focus on the work environment when talking about soft skills).

✅ Non-measurable

I work in a company where everything is measured, they call it KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) and they are specifically for hard skills. I have a KPI called CSAT (Customer Satisfaction), which consists that customers who will score my work and their satisfaction with a score. I have to get more than 8 out of 10 as a score to pass that KPI.

Most of the big companies do that, small businesses may not measure that KPI, but they have other ones like sales or revenue, which is critical for the life of the business.

On the other hand, soft skills are very difficult to measure because they define the quality of the behavior, it would be ridiculous to say in a job interview: "Hey, I'm scored with 9 out 10 as a leader". What are the facts? Was there any secret test you took? Did you go to college to learn leadership?

At the same time, (and you may see it as a disadvantage), since they can't be measured, that's why they're difficult to develop. Schools or colleges don't teach you these skills. You can go to a leadership seminar, but it won't make you a leader overnight.

Even expert leaders have difficulties applying these skills because that's not something you study for, you learn these skills by having experience, putting yourself into practice, and making mistakes.

✅ Identifiable in a context

I mentioned above soft skills can't be measured, however, you can notice if people apply those skills into their lives. You can distinguish who is acting as a leader and who is a follower.

This is like observing a person and do a checklist with closed questions (Yes/No answers) for the selected skill:

Does this person guide others?
Does this person create and take initiative?
Does this person have followers?

I mean, those are subjective questions people will do, some people will agree with the answers and some people won't, but you can have a framework of what that skill means.

Another problem with this is that if you want to people perceive this skill on you, you have to show up with your decisions and actions. The way you work is how people will notice what are the soft skills you have and that involves your reputation.

✅ One objective: Deal with people's feelings

In the characteristics above I constantly mention the words "people" or "others", because that's what soft skills all about. We're socials, we need to interact with others, however, the way we do it, will change their perspective they have from us.

This is not restrictive to a positive perspective but a negative too and I can assure that the lack of soft skills will affect negatively other's people perception. Of course, it could be in a different amount, with a big or small impact, but definitely, it will be negative.

If you are going to comply with any of the soft skills, it's to serve other people in a better way and these skills have implicit that there's gonna be another person or other people interacting with you.

👥 What's in it for other people?

Since the main objective is to deal with people's feelings, people will benefit from a personality with soft skills, let's check some of the benefits.

✔️ Good environment

People are gonna be comfortable with you, because you know how to handle their feelings and personalities, and everybody will look for you for any task.

Believe me, in a workstation where you have to interact with a lot of people, soft skills are on-demand, nobody can't stand someone with a bad attitude when working.

✔️ Efficiency

As there are no obstacles to deal with you, people will feel that you are a diligent person, and it will be easier to have you in their team to work.

I think that's the reason why companies are looking for people with soft skills, as the good environment is an opportunity to work well, it makes any backlog lighter as the cooperation among departments is evident.

✔️ Reduce stress

Having a bad work environment and inefficiency in processes or workload could make people stressed because there's unnecessary pressure from the overload. That's bad if you want to take care of your health and it will pay in the long term. So that's why it's important to have people managing soft skills.

🙋 What's in it for me?

Soft skills could mean an altruist term in which you give everything for everybody and nothing is for you, but I take a look at soft skills as a benefit for myself, and I think it's bigger than the benefit you deliver to others. I'll mention the most important benefits you can get from soft skills.

☑️ Mental health

This is the most important benefit I think because your health is what you need if you want to continue living, mental health is important. My experience interacting with people with bad soft skills is awful. They are unhappy people, they want to do things on their way, and once they're not approved they feel depressed.

Having good soft skills is related to optimism and happiness, and it's proven it'll affect your health.

☑️ Productivity

Productivity is doing less and achieving more. If you have a project in which you need to involve more people, the way you interact with them will help you get things done.

As I mentioned a couple of paragraphs above, there's an efficiency mindset, and people will acknowledge it.

☑️ Faster results and opportunities

Not only you're gonna get things done, but you're also going to get the results faster because there's this harmony effect that will make you achieve things easier. Imagine a group where communication is bad, nobody wants to talk to anyone, and projects get delayed because of a colleague not wanting to cooperate.

Also, as long as you have strong soft skills, it'll give you the chance to apply for better opportunities, since people notice that you are productive, a good leader, or a good communicator, being promoted is a big possibility, or getting that client for your business. It's a matter of building a reputation.

☑️ Same attitude to you

The golden rule is "treat others as you want to be treated". It's also a big possibility that if you show a good attitude due to your soft skills, you're gonna be treated the same way.

If you are a good colleague, you're gonna have better colleagues, if you communicate things well, you're gonna receive good communication, if you are a good employee, you're gonna have a good boss.

I want to mention something important with my last statement, you can argue that you're a good employee but you don't have a good boss, or you don't have good colleagues. That's why having strong soft skills is important for you. If you are not treated the same way, get out. As I mention, there are more opportunities for people with strong soft skills (there are many more for sure), better companies will agree on this and they welcome and value assets like soft skills.

📕 Soft skills list

Okay, too much talking, let's review and define some of the most important soft skills. I'm not covering all the concepts, but I'll give you some ideas for you to research a little bit more.

📳 Communication

Communication is the ability to express or deliver a message in a clear way. It seems simple, but it's not. Talking in front of people might be disgusting to some because the message has to be clear and you have to show that you know what you're saying.

Depending on the message you want to deliver, that's the way you have to adapt your tone of voice, body language, if it's a topic with some additional or special knowledge, you have to study a little bit more to express it.

It's also important to know your audience, are they elders receiving a technical topic? are they beginners in a specific field? Do you have to talk more technical jargon for important people?

I know, it looks like I'm talking about giving a speech, but communication skills are also included in a casual conversation, and it involves your listening skills. You have to understand feedback from the person that is listening to you and you have to do the same. It's one-to-one communication.

Communication will include your presentation skills, how you look and how you're perceived by others. Your confidence when talking and if you're paying attention while you're listening.

🤝 Teamwork

There's no I in a team. This is a good soft skill, having the ability to work with others, and work, in this case, means: cooperate, involve, include, plan and delegate.

Working with others is not an easy task, because you have to know that others can have a different way to do things, some of them will be organized and some will not. Maybe if you're not organized, you have to learn how to follow others' pace.

In the same way, you need to focus on being tolerant and respectful with others' opinions in which you don't agree with and understand that if you're in a team, it's because you have a goal in common you have to achieve with your partners.

💪 Leadership

Leadership is not (and it will never be) a synonym of bossing or supervising. The main difference is that a leader has followers because of their ideas and not because of their job role or position.

Maybe your boss is not a leader or if you are a boss, you may have a leader as a direct report. Leadership can be noticeable due to the grade of influence a person has over others.

There are two things (and many other more but those are important for me) that I think make a good leader, the first one is creativity and initiative, everything starts with an idea, but an idea is not enough, its execution will define if that's something worthy to work on.

That's why a leader is in constant activity, tight schedules, and several projects to do because taking initiative and creating is part of a leader's role.

The second thing that makes a great leader is an emotional intelligence, understand your own and others' feelings, and know how to react with it. Emotional intelligence is what leaders practice to gain followers.

If you can understand what others' goals are, react over them and mix them as a synthesis with your own goals, people will follow you and will agree on what you're planning.

🤠 Adaptability

The only constant thing is change. Being adaptable means learning new skills, change behaviors in response to the context, not being static, and doing the same things to obtain different results.

These days this is a critical skill for business, needs are new every day and if you want to remain in the competition, you have to innovate and adapt your company to the change.

I remember my marketing teacher saying that in the past, companies would sell products because that's what they had to offer, but nowadays, companies sell products because the customer is demanding them.

If you are adaptable, that means that you can walk along with the company's needs and goals. This term is also related to focus on improvements you can offer for the company, and to your personal life too.

🧠 Critical Thinking

Don't rush, evaluate and think over it. This is how you think about a problem, you define it, find its root cause and create solutions to solve it, then you evaluate how you do it.

This is important for decision-making and problem-solving, a person with this skill knows how to plan and how to execute with information that backs up their decision.

You even use this skill in technical tasks, like finding a bug in your code. You first understand what's the problem and what is expected, then you research to find its root cause and solve it. All that process sounds complicated because there are some steps you need to follow before you pass judgment about something, but rushing will direct you to make wrong decisions and to get carried away by the lame comments.

🤑 Negotiation

The emoji shows something interesting, money, indeed, it's related to money, people in the sales field must have these skills to close businesses. Negotiation is also a way to say, you win I win, that's why it's very useful in sales.

Not only do salesmen use this skill, but it also comes in handy when speaking with your boss for a promotion, or convincing your team members to do a project in a specific way.

Some skills you have to develop here are persuasion and confidence. It's also important to be a good communicator to deliver the benefits of the actions you want to take.

🤔 How can I work on soft skills?

There are more soft skills (and skills that are derived from them) but I don't want you to be overwhelmed. It's enough, that's not something easy if you're not used to be good at dealing with people, and not even a person that has experience on soft skills is perfect, it's a day-to-day learning curve, but I have some recommendations if you want to start working on that.

- 🚀 Understand what are your goals

Do you want to be good at dealing with people? Why? The last question is the most important here. Know what is your motivation, understand your goals. If you don't know where to go, why are you even trying? Having goals to reach (a promotion, a project, a client) will be the reason the main purpose of working on your soft skills.

🏋️ Fit your goals with soft skills

If you have goals, write them down on paper (or on a digital app, the one you use the most) and link them with soft skills. Search for a list of soft skills and create relationships with your goals.

For example, getting a promotion will be linked to negotiation skills, or starting a new project will link to leadership and teamwork and that's how you start your strategy. Those examples are simple, but I recommend you to be as specific as possible to identify required behaviors for your goals.

🙋 Ask for help

You might not be an expert, you need to get ideas and feedback from others because you're working on these skills for others. Asking for help will include reading books, subscribing to newsletters or YouTube channels that talk about this topic.

The best people to get help from are your superiors, talk to your boss about it, bosses feel good when a direct report wants to overcome the lack of skills. If you don't feel comfortable with your boss, search for a mentor, somebody you respect and you want to imitate because of their achievements (it could be your spouse or your mom too).

😌 Be actively patient

Soft skills are not something you learn overnight as I mention before, it's something you develop with time. Being patient means to wait, but not be laid on the couch until you magically have those skills. Baby steps are better.

You have your strategy, you need to be working on something every day, it doesn't have to be everything at once, but as long as you are doing a small task every day that gets you closer to your goal, that's enough, just imagine at the end of a year reaching your goal because you did something and committed to doing it.

Hard skills are important because they define the 'what' when working, but soft skills are also important, because they define the 'how' when working, specifically with others.

How to beat learning paralysis?

David Salomón — Tue, 23 Feb 2021 04:42:33 +0000

Have you been studying for months or maybe years in several courses and you think that you don't know enough to create a project or look for a job? You have surely fallen into learning paralysis.

Too much info there...

The Internet has been one of the best inventions in history, with it, we can establish communication bridges over long distances. This makes it easy for the information to be disseminated. There is so much information on the internet, that you can even get bachelor's or master's degrees online, something that we didn't expect 20 years ago.

You will know me as the guy switching from a non-tech job to a developer career, and it was overwhelming to know that there's a lot to learn when it comes to programming and web development.

After I completed one topic, I immediately opened the next one and when I finished it, I didn't longer remember many things about the first one.

Being an eternal student can be shocking, but I realized that filling us with knowledge is not enough if I don't apply what I've learned, I understood it and that is why I want to give you five recommendations to get out of the trap of learning paralysis

1. Start with the end in mind

When studying a topic, you should set an objective, which will help us to check if we are learning or not. When you start a new course, you must ask yourself the question: Why and what do I want to study this course for?

It is very common to start taking many courses without having the real objective of using that knowledge in the future. An answer like "I will learn CSS and JavaScript because I love web development, I am very visual and I want to get a job in a big company making websites dynamic" is very punctual and objective.

I'm not saying it's wrong to take courses just for general knowledge (such as binaries or history of computers) but you would use more of your time focusing on the ones that align with your highest priority.

2. Create a learning cycle

I am a self-taught student, (thanks to freeCodeCamp, Udemy and many other online platforms) so I apply a special process to the courses that suit my most important objective. This process consists of three parts:

a) Know what you will learn

Do some research on what you are going to learn, you can read blogs about the subject of the course, watch videos about general concepts or read the comments, and description of the course, it will help you understand if the course will interest you, so you will meet prerequisites and you will not get from scratch to the first class.

b) Learn by doing

In programming courses, it is very important to follow the teacher with code, as you can experiment while the class is reproduced. Apart from that, you might want to pause and you can experiment with other values, attributes, or formulas. Besides, all your senses participate actively when practicing while you play the class.

c) Practice what you have learned

At the end of the course, I bet that only the basic topics to be learned are taken, but you can get a lot out of it if you create a project from scratch applying what you have learned because that is the true practice. You will find yourself locked in bugs and you will have to do a lot of research on why a piece of code does not turn out the same as the teacher said. You will encourage creativity and you will be able to exercise your knowledge.

3. Eliminate the perfectionist in you

Many times I fell into the trap of waiting for everything to be perfect (the project, the technique, the time) to be able to do things. In the end, I realized, that perfection never exists, there are always areas of opportunity in which you can improve.

What happens with being a perfectionist is that we wait so long to have the perfect project, that in all that time we spend studying and not practicing because you must understand that this will be the only way to reach perfection by doing.

My recommendation is that you start with small projects in which you apply what little you have learned, which will increase the dexterity and abilities for larger projects. Those projects will never get better if you don't start practicing.

4. You will never know everything

There comes a point where you want to learn all the technologies, to be able to do a project. Interestingly, when you finish mastering a certain language, an update comes and you will have to get used to new things.

As well as the changes in JavaScript ES6 or going from positioning elements in web pages using HTML tables or absolute and relative positioning in CSS and not to mention flex and grid.

The lesson of this tip is to focus on what is most important and learn it. General knowledge is good, but that kind of knowledge will not help you achieve your professional goals if that is what you want. You need to focus.

Also, trying to know everything can lead to frustration when you realize that you won't be able to. So focus on what you have decided, to meet your goals.

5. Find a team

A team helps you integrate knowledge, since we have learned that you will never know everything, other people will know how to do what you cannot, so by building teams involved in a specific field, you can put together bigger things.

Networking is an important skill today, you should know that if you want to do something great, you can't do it alone.

For example, when designing a website, of course, you can do it yourself, without any help if you have frontend and backend experience, but if you want to scale, it will take forever to get your project done and the to-do lists will seem endless. On the other hand, by distributing tasks among the members of your team, it will be much easier and you will be able to deliver a better job by having known how to focus everyone's knowledge on specific branches.

If you keep learning, create your group in social media or community in Hashnode, where everyone is interested in technology. Create imperfect projects, focus on the little, set goals and create your learning cycle.

There are no excuses to continue falling into the eternal-student trap, close the book and start working on it!

It's time to upgrade: Moving from a non-tech job to a developer career

David Salomón — Sun, 21 Feb 2021 01:45:39 +0000

The desire to improve in life is enormous for many people, but as technology advances, many of the skills that were in high demand in the 20th century are being obsolete. I understood about it and decided it was time to upgrade myself.

Making the decision

When I finished high school as an accountant, I entered college to be a great lawyer, one of those who do not lose cases and are very arrogant 👨‍⚖️.

Little by little, when studying the degree in 2015, I realized that there were many lawyers in a country with such a small population (low demand) and also being an arrogant person is not good at all.

I sponsored my studies with my job as an accountant, in El Salvador, a minimum wage is sometimes enough to maintain a college degree. However, I noticed how my friends got well-paid jobs, either because they knew how to speak English (My native language is Spanish) or they decided to take programming courses and were hired by big companies to solve big problems 👨‍💻.

That comparison made me feel obsolete 😞 and I decided to embark on the journey of learning to learn from scratch, getting the pride of starting over, to go with the flow of the world and be prepared for tomorrow 💪🏼.

Some pieces of advice

This blog post is for those who have started their developer career journey, be it either design, digital marketing, or programming, or for those who have not yet decided to change careers and are tempted to do so. Hence I give you some tips that helped me to make this trip a little more friendly 🤗.

Establish your professional purpose

Do you want to specialize in a branch of technology because you want to or because it is what everyone does? It is important to define our efforts for something valuable 🏅.

If you are not interested in technology, that's fine, you don't have to go from your current job to another one just because people do it around you.

I felt obsolete seeing that everyone specialized in something that is being a boom in this 21st century: technology. However, it is a very personal thought and it might not be the same as yours. Each person has their motivations when acting and you must continue doing what makes you happy and feel comfortable 💆‍♀️.

If you are comfortable where you are and you feel happy doing something in your life that is not related to modern technologies, I hope I have helped you so far, in making you understand and reaffirm your professional purpose in this life. Thank you.

Create your realistic plan

If you continue reading my article, it means that you are not comfortable with what you do (if it is not related to technology), that you felt almost the same as me. So, having established a professional purpose, it is time to make a plan 🤔.

I planned to learn English to work for a bilingual company and thus learn to give technical support to clients in the IT world. Get used to the environment and be hired as a front end developer to be a project manager and start my venture in less than ten years 🚀.

That is my plan, you will have other ideas, another time limit, or other hobbies with which you feel comfortable. What is essential is that you set the phases, specialize in them, and respect the times that you have defined, being realistic so that you can achieve it.

Master one phase of the plan only

If you noticed, my plan is a ten-year limit. It sounds overwhelming at first, but it frees me from frustration by not getting excited about unrealistic times. But why so long? 🕰️ If you want to achieve a final goal, you must focus and specialize in each of the phases of the plan that you have designed. Position yourself in your comfort zone and then extend it.

You will find the path very difficult if you start learning React.js without knowing HTML. Or if you start studying for a Scrum certification without having participated in a project 🤷🏽‍♂️.

My story can be summed up in that I was an accountant and, having mastered accounting at my job, I studied English to be hired at a customer service company. After mastering English, I prepared myself with the knowledge of the internet, DNS, protocols, and emails to enter a technology company.

Now I'm still in the same company, mastered that skill, and continue in a position that supports the team with small projects, such as performance improvement, data analysis, and team management.

Currently, my focus is on mastering front-end development thanks to my mentors, my side projects, and online courses. If someone has told you that you could learn a skill in a week, maybe they just have excited you to sell a lame course.

The truth is that to master a skill, based on my experience, you need 6 months to a year to feel it a developed skill. Of course, do not get too stuck, when you feel ready for the current phase, start with the next ➡️.

Network and work for free

Many of the skills I have learned is thanks to working for free, either as a volunteer or as an extra activity to my full-time job.

I know that many people hate working for free, but trust me, it is a powerful tool when you are learning. It allows you to execute a role without being part of it officially, the learning curve is reduced and it prepares you for a position in which you can obtain financial benefits 🤑.

Add a good contact book and you will be unstoppable. It troubled me to talk to people in other departments (like Business Analyst) to learn from them and prepare for a similar position in the future. But the truth is that this is that I understood how important it is to obtain new skills 🧏‍♀️.

If you get to these people and present yourself as someone who just likes to receive knowledge, you will be unattractive for someone to help you. On the other hand, if you offer to work for free, you get respect, much more knowledge and appreciation, that will help you in future opportunities.

Have a good time

Nothing is easy, everything requires time, discipline, effort, and a lot of patience, but it is useless if you are angry because a project did not go the way you wanted, or if you are anxiously waiting for the day when your professional purpose is achieved or even if you spend time being frustrated because the opportunities do not come as you expected.

I'm happy when I do a short script that summarizes a ten-minute process in just three seconds or when the complex formula I've been working on, works the way I want it. So much so that I even think it is magic ✨, although for an experienced programmer it is such a simple thing. The best thing is that you learn to find pleasure in small things and repeat them, the important thing is that you feel good.

Master each phase of the process and have fun with it. Everyone has been through it, you are not the first to want to improve and you will not be the last. I always keep in mind that we only have one life and we have to take advantage of every minute, I hope that minute is not one of bitterness, but one of joy and comfort 🤗.

50 projects in 50 days? This is what I think!

David Salomón — Sat, 13 Feb 2021 01:45:34 +0000

Some background

As you may know, I'm a simple guy learning web development from scratch. I work in a full-time company as a tech support specialist but I want to get a job as a front-end developer someday.

Nothing is easy, you have to study and practice to reach your goal, trying to find some time to code is difficult, but when you have a goal in mind, nobody can stop you from reaching your goal.

Brad Traversy and his course

I went to the doctor two months ago and while I was waiting, I was scrolling down on Facebook, when suddenly I saw a post about Brad Traversy releasing a brand new course on Udemy called 50 Projects In 50 Days - HTML, CSS & JavaScript.

I didn't know Brad's methodology, and so far, I'd been learning pure theory. I did some web projects with HTML and CSS, they were good and I was excited to learn some new things during the pandemic, but I hadn't made projects that include JavaScript.

There was a promotion code for the Udemy course and well I took it to see how it looked like and I can tell you that I took advantage of it. Brad is a great instructor, he's the guy that goes directly to the point and shows you how he'd do it without silly jokes and with a normal pace, in which you don't get bored of the explanation and he neither goes too fast with it.

The course

The main objective of studying the course is to create 50 small projects including HTML, CSS, and vanilla JavaScript in 50 days (intended to be one per day), and in every project, you apply theory to practice.

What it was interesting to me is that all of the projects are intended to be components, I mean, that you can use that piece of code to include it on a big project, because they are features that you find in most of the websites on the internet.

In the beginning, I felt overwhelmed with some other courses I bought and 50 days sounds a lot, but I started following the course while coding.

After creating the habit of doing one project per day, I became more excited about it, because, in every project, you apply something new. I had never coded with DOM manipulation, that's the point where you start to like JavaScript, manipulating things on your website is when everything you've learned about loops, variables, objects, arrays, and so on makes more sense.

I completed the project and I'm really grateful for what I've learned. You can see the 50 projects on https://50daysproject.vercel.app/

I know, I don't want you to get bored with my experience, in fact, I want to give some recommendations about what I've learned and how to take advantage of this type of course.

1. Do one project per day

This recommendation has two faces, the first one is to do one project per day to not get overwhelmed. What happens is that if you do three, four, or six projects in one day to finish the course quickly, you're not going to learn the essence of each project.

Some researchers say that it's probable that you are going to forget 70% of the things that you experiment within just a couple of days. Completing the course must not be an objective, the objective must be learning.

So, take it easy, 'cause you should buy courses to learn, not to have a certificate.

On the other hand, do one project per day to create a habit. I know, it's difficult, I can tell you while having a full-time job and studying a Bachelor's in college (that's not related to software development), so make a slot in your calendar to do one project, complete it.

First days are harder, but when you force yourself at least in the first week, you're gonna enjoy it and even you're gonna find a necessity of completing the next project the next day.

If you have a goal in mind, such as getting hired as a software developer and improve your lifestyle in a tech job, make space to do it. After you complete the course, then you're gonna be looking for more projects to create.

2. Apply your personal touch

The course projects are available in a repository on GitHub, and you know that's something easy to copy and paste and create yours on a repository, but that's not the point of studying a course.

I rely on your abilities to use Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V, but that's not gonna get you to stand up out of the crowd. You might want to personalize your projects and make sure you are recognized for your effort.

I noticed that in the way Brad was doing the course, all of the projects were separated into different folders, without any relationship, and due to my OCD, I wanted to organize them with numbers and make a sort of portfolio where you can access all of them.

That's my personal touch, I added a sort of a navbar on every project where you can go back home and you see the title of the project. So in that way, people will confirm what's the name of the project, the section number and they can see the list of features I created following along the course.

I know you have better ideas than me and your creativity will show up, so it's time to do it with this course.

3. Follow along but experiment

In every project, Brad talks about the importance of adding our own features and improve the project.

He had some ideas on how his projects could be improved but that's something you have to do. Remember that the most important thing is to learn by yourself.

I know about the power of repetition and believe, I learned from it, because in every project, you do almost the same things, like creating variables for the elements in the HTML, doing a loop (either forEach or for-loop) in arrays with similar elements, conditionals, and some logic.

Everything above is very useful, but when you modify those things and break the project, is when you start learning for real. At the end of the course, you have that sense of responsibility to improve what you have done. So, it's time to do it.

4. Merge them into a big project

Every feature you make in the course it's very useful in real-life development, you can see how the features you created are used in websites you often visit.

I always find it interesting to know how nice features are made in code and when you do them, you feel very excited because you know the steps and the logic behind that feature. It's like knowing a secret and realizing how useful it could be in your personal projects.

The great advantage of the course is that you can create components that can reusable in different website. For example, a gallery of images , a loading icon , a to-do list , a notes app , a background slider , drag and drop effects , a landing page , a password generator , testimonials , etc.

Every mini project is a feature that you can include in a social media app, a productivity website, features you can do at work, or if you are not thinking about a specific product, you can do it to include it on your portfolio and show it to the recruiter in the company you apply to get a job.

5. Have fun

I think this is the most important recommendation, 'cause if you're not enjoying what you're doing in coding, maybe a software development job is not for you. I know from some friends that are developers, that sometimes they can be very stressed about their jobs, but they explain to me how exciting is to find a solution to a bug or create a special feature that looks and works really nice in a company's website.

Somebody said that if you choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life, maybe Confucius wasn't right or maybe he was, but the point is that while you're learning, you need to feel happy about what you create.

In the course we did some funny projects too, I learned and also I laughed at some projects such as the Dad's jokes generator, the insect catch game or the Pokedex.

The course helped me a lot on how to practice many things, something new I've learned is how to make API request in JavaScript, and even though, it's still a hard topic for me, I find fun in it, because I know I can create new things from that knowledge.

Keep on practicing, it may be hard, but if you really want to switch careers, you'll put your efforts into it. In the end, you'll feel satisfied with what you have learned. We have a saying in Spanish that says "El que sabe se divierte" which means "The one that knows how to do it, has fun", so, if you want to enjoy your career, first you need to put your efforts into learning and you'll get it.