Developer to designer and back to developer... maybe?

Introduction

So, I am here today to share my journey on how I have "roamed" from craft to craft finding the perfect thing. I have loved to develop; in fact, I love to develop. I remember my first line of HTML code displaying a Hello world on my screen and thought,

My Journey

Well yeah, we all know that feeling. It's great but short-lived, mostly dies after you encounter your first bug or a series of errors at line 31 when the code ends at line 16.

So yeah, I learned to code in JavaScript which I used to build websites, C++ which is my favorite language for a reason I do not know, and I never used it for anything to be honest. I just learnt it so I can look cool. Hey, don't judge me.

I started losing motivation to code and program after I saw a lot of people online doing cool stuff, making money with their skills and I couldn't even get my npm to start. Just kidding but I started feeling that imposter syndrome and soon after I had some empty plates to fill up with food and the coding wasn't getting me any money. I tried applying for some jobs but wasn't getting in, maybe because I was an amateur, I can't tell, but I knew I was not a top-tier developer. I mostly looked cool in college amongst my friends because I could program but that was it. For context, I am offering food processing engineering, which is just an unrelated course so anytime someone sees me program and got to know I don't offer a computer course they are amazed. I still didn't get any b*tches with that, DAMNNN.

Switching Career

So yeah, shid got more real, and before I could realize it after 3 years of coding and very little progress I started drifting to design. I realized I loved the front-end design aspect of developing so I thought to myself getting into design would be a great idea. After some exploring Adobe Illustrator, because I loved it more, I decided being a brand designer (an aspect of graphic design) was perfect. My first gig as a graphic designer, a couple of weeks after I got into design, was to make a flyer. When I received the payment I just was lit, cause even though the money was small, I had made something within a short period. I decided to go all in and tried setting up a studio. I got hit by bad habits, mostly a lack of focus, discipline, and time management, which led to using very little of my potential.

Refection and Lessons

After all this and much reflection I realized maybe it's not the skill, but I am the problem. Because people are making money out of each of these crafts, and there is one variable here and that's me. So probably I am the problem. I feel bad writing this and I don't know who it's going to help out there.

The lessons I have learned from this journey are:

• Habits
  Most things work out, we just don't have the write habits to do the things that need to be done. Taking the initiative to build those habits may be beneficial and would increase our chances of success.

• Patience
  I remember feeling like I should be handed the world's best gigs at my level, but little did I know it takes time. I did a little research and realized most people who succeed have been doing the thing for a long; especially in tech where you cannot just come out of the blue. Even now with booming stuff all over the internet, most of those people having their shid booming have been in the game for long.

• Execution is KING
  I have had a lot of projects I never completed, some I never even started. Ideas are pawns but execution is king. You'll save yourself so much disappointment and regret when you execute.

• Have fun.
  Last but not least have fun. Explore and find happiness cause most of the beginning stages are going to be full of boredom, stress, and loneliness. I'd say I wish I had more fun. Yeah, let me not forget, make friends of similar interests. Some that are at a higher level than you are, some on the same level, and some are beneath you. This would have helped me a lot. Of course, I did have some programming bros, but I rarely engaged.

Conclusion

I'm taking on a new path to merge this design and programming. I can't tell the head and tail of this blog but hey, to whoever read and found inspiration or learned something from this, I hope you don't repeat my mistakes and

Happy coding 😎