Table of Contents
- Setting a New Benchmark for Myself
- My Most Productive Six Months Yet
- 2 Hackathon Wins
- Raised Money for Charity
- Became an Engineering Manager
- Collected More Than 25 Stars on My GitHub Repositories
- Beat My Own Record in Terms of Likes per Article
- One Article Made It Into the Top 7 of the Week
- Got Accepted into the Virtual Coffee Community
- Joined Devengers
- To Sum It All Up
- Zero Luck, All Hard Work
- Share Your Wins and Achievements, and Set a New Benchmark Starting Now
Setting a New Benchmark for Myself
This short piece serves as a quick reminder of what my current benchmark looks like in terms of how much I should aim to do and achieve within a six-month period for it to feel successful.
Six months is a solid amount of time, you can accomplish a lot in that window. I'm not someone who tends to look back too often, but every now and then, it's important to check in with yourself to make sure you're still moving forward and not slipping backward. And slipping backward is never a good sign.
Some people might argue that just because you've been successful during a certain period, it doesn't necessarily mean you'll keep improving from there.
And that is true, there's no doubt about that. Sometimes things just go south, and we fail to achieve even half of what we set out to accomplish.
But that's the whole point!
Success doesn't teach us much, failure does. Failure is where the most important lessons come from. So set your standards high. If you fail, don't worry about it. Every failure is a lesson, and the more you fail, the more opportunities you have to learn and grow.
My Most Productive Six Months Yet
At the beginning of the year, I made a pact with myself that the first half of this year would be the most successful period of my life. Plans often don't work out, but this one worked like a charm.
Don't get me wrong though, I'm still not fully happy with myself, I feel like I could've done even better but still, it's good enough for now.
Here are the most important things that happened during that time:
2 Hackathon Wins
If I set out to do something, I want to succeed every way possible, whether it's industry work, writing code, writing articles, managing people, or presenting my work. I had already done all of that, but I had never participated in a hackathon.
As a long-time member of the DEV Community, I was well aware of the dev challenges and hackathons that occasionally pop up, especially after the merge with MLH. That felt like the perfect opportunity to finally go after that goal.
And boy did it turn out even better than I expected.
GitHub Copilot CLI Challenge Win: Metal Birds Watch
This was my first-ever hackathon. Over 400 people took part, as it was a large event with great prizes for the winners, one of them being a ticket to the GitHub Universe conference, which is happening later this year in beautiful San Francisco.
As an aviation enthusiast, I poured my heart into this project. I could barely work on it, as my neck, shoulder, and arm were in constant pain, I was in complete agony. A few days earlier, I had spent a long time clearing snow from my driveway, which took a serious toll on my body. I was in terrible pain.
Here's me (the fool) trying to clear up the driveway:
But I pushed through it and finished the project anyway.
When I saw that I had taken first place, I literally shouted out of excitement. That project will always be special to me.
By the way, these are my initial sketches and outlines of the project. A lot of math was involved, and I'm glad I'm good at it. Sorry for my ugly handwriting, as I mentioned, my arm was killing me.
Notion MCP Challenge Win: NoteRunway
This one was special too. I built a large, complex, AI-powered tool that helps manage your Notion workspace. I've been a Notion user for six years now, and I wanted to give something back to this incredible team. It turned out far better than I expected.
And do you know the best part?
Because of that project, I got to meet Ivan Zhao himself, the founder of Notion. We talked about my project and many other interesting topics. How awesome is that?! Life is full of surprises, let me tell you that!
Raised Money for Charity
This was also a huge win. I regularly donate to charity, but this one was by far the largest contribution I've made. It came as a result of winning the GitHub Copilot CLI challenge (my first hackathon).
The prize included a Copilot Pro Plus subscription, which I already had. GitHub gave me a few alternative options instead, and I chose to donate it to charity, an easy decision.
Now the best part:
GitHub matched my contribution, bringing the total donation to a significant amount.
Once again, a huge thank you to GitHub for making that possible, you're awesome!
Became an Engineering Manager
As I mentioned above, if I set out to do something, I want to be the best at every part of it. I've been writing code for more than 10 years now, and I felt it was time to explore other dimensions of engineering. This role made the most sense to me, as I'm still closely involved in engineering, but now I also take on more responsibility and get to see things from a different perspective.
So far, I'm absolutely loving it!
Collected More Than 25 Stars on My GitHub Repositories
A number of people became interested in my work and started starring my repositories, which is always great to see.
Beat My Own Record in Terms of Likes per Article
One of my articles received significant engagement and became the most liked piece I've written so far. Many people also reached out to tell me they used it to train their LLMs or to build new skills around it.
Check out the article below:
One Article Made It Into the Top 7 of the Week
If you're not a technical writer on DEV.to, it's hard to appreciate how difficult it is to get an article into the weekly top 7, it really needs to stand out. This article made it there, which I was extremely happy about.
Check it out below:
Got Accepted into the Virtual Coffee Community and the Devengers Team
I've always wanted to be part of this community. I knew the people there were great and supportive. I got accepted, and I'm incredibly happy about it. It's always important to have good people around you.
You really are who you surround yourself with.
Joined Devengers
Thanks to @francistrdev I joined the Devengers team. It makes me think I've done something special on this platform, which feels awesome!
To Sum It All Up
- Won the GitHub Copilot CLI Challenge
- Won the Notion MCP Challenge
- Raised a significant amount of money for charity with GitHub
- Won a ticket to the GitHub Universe conference
- Met Ivan Zhao, the founder of Notion
- Became an Engineering Manager
- Built 4 new personal projects
- Collected 25+ GitHub stars
- Published 13 new articles
- Wrote my all-time most loved article
- Reached the Top 7 of the week with an article
- Joined 2 new communities: Virtual Coffee and the Devengers team here on DEV Community.
Zero Luck, All Hard Work
I've seen a lot of people talk about the importance of luck, which I agree plays a role to some extent. But it often creates a mindset where people start relying on luck more than they should, and that's a big mistake, I hate that.
These things I just mentioned didn't happen because of luck. They came from pushing myself to the limit, at times even through severe physical pain (no exaggeration), and sacrificing a lot of my personal life along the way. My evenings, nights, and weekends were dedicated to all of this.
It's not a lot of time in the grand scheme of things, but I'd rather use that limited time than not do it at all.
Of course, this isn't for everyone, or maybe even for most people. I've even been called a few "funny" names because of it: weird, psycho, freak, nerd. But who gives a "fork"? I certainly don't.
Share Your Wins and Achievements, and Set a New Benchmark Starting Now
Now I'd love to hear about your new baseline and your new standards, share them, and let's talk about them.
Let's keep grinding!
If you want to follow my work or connect, you can find me here:
Top comments (52)
First off, really well done!
Secondly, that's not hard-work, that's passionate work. You did the hackathons in ways you wanted to do, on topics you were passionate about (dogfood, you built it for yourself, it just so happens to help everyone else). Same goes for the charity and engineering manager position, those are things that you were passionate about, so you made it happen. The VirtualCoffee is also one you wanted, you were passionate, so you made it happen, the blogs are the same.
The age old truth of follow your heart (passion) and whatever you seek to achieve, if your heart's in it, you'll have a much better chance at achieving it. Because you put in those extra 2h a day, you sit in your spare time doing maths, you post blogs late at night because you want to, not because of some arbitrary deadline.
So well done on a life well lived over the past 6 months, you did exactly what you wanted to and it paid dividends.
Oh wow! What a feedback! Thank you so much for such amazing words! 🙏 And your perspective is absolutely spot on!
As long as you do what you enjoy, you cant fail. So keep THAT drive, dont 'lock-in', locking-in isnt what you did, locking in is the day-job you didnt like anymore, that's why you threw it out for a new job. The hackathons were alot of work, but I'm pretty sure you enjoyed every second of it. Sure, you get frustrated, but you liked the projects you worked on and you "poured your heart and soul" into them. You cant put a value on a human life, so how do you value the product of a human life? You experience and passion is what drove those projects to being priceless, because you put yourself as nr1, the core-user. As long as you develop for yourself and not others, anything you do is a success, because you'll have 1 happy customer, you already have your first alpha tester, you already have 99% of the hard-part done, finding a market. You marketed the pen to yourself and as a result, your desire for that pen drove you to building the means to achieve it. Long hours, waking up at 2am to jot down an idea quick, sitting at work while working through your next feature in your head... All signs of passion, not dedication and hard-work, those are side-effects of passion, not the driving force. Hard-work creates fatigue, passionate work releases endorphins. Dedication creates resentment, while passion creates commitment. Understanding passion at it's core, is 1 of the philosophies to a happy, prosperous life.
Actually my last position at work was also really good, but this one is better in terms of challenges, it's an uncharted territory for me and I love it.
But again, what a comment! someone needs to frame that and put it on the wall. 😄 You really know what you're talking about! And I appreciate that!
But it wasnt interesting? It didnt get you excited the way the prospect of Engineering Manager does? That's the difference between locked-in and passion. Whether you enjoy it or not, you're craving something more at the old job, you dont at the new 1?
It was interesting, but it was time to move on. And my definition of lock-in is a bit different. It's when you really enjoy what you're doing and can spend hours, or even days working on it without even thinking of taking a break.
I see, okay, so your definition of lock-in is more aligned with passion then
The part people will skim past is that none of these are separate wins. The articles fed the stars, the shipping fed the hackathon credibility, the credibility fed the promotion. Six months of locking in works because the outputs quietly become inputs, each thing you ship lowers the cost of the next one. That is why it looks like a sudden jump from the outside and felt like slow grind from the inside.
And "success doesn't teach us much, failure does" is the line I would frame. Congrats on the run, well earned.
Thank you! You’re spot on. And one more important thing is the character building aspect of it. When you go through that intense “camp”, you’re not afraid anymore to do the same thing again (or even longer and more intense). And that’s the most valuable skill.
Exactly, and I think the fear does not disappear so much as move. What was your ceiling becomes your floor, so the next camp does not feel braver, it feels normal, you just start from higher ground. That is the compounding turned on yourself: each run does not only ship work, it raises the baseline you run from next time.
That’s the most accurate description of it. 💯
🥲👏👏......
That's incredible.
Please i want to ask you a question, i know that most of those things were hard and you decided to take them on😎, but how did you cope with procrastination and distraction ?,
what exactly made you to...you know get up and go do it and keep on doing it till it's done ?
And you did more even though the previous achievements could discourage you ?
Thank you!🙏
Dealing with procrastination is definitely one of the toughest things to deal with, especially when working full-time and all you want in your free time is to relax a bit.
But whenever that feeling shows up, I remind myself of my goals, they’re hard to achieve even with hard work and consistency, without either of those, it’s literally impossible. So I need to show up every single day, no matter how I feel.
And about the previous achievements discouraging me, that’s actually a great point. It’s easy to say “oh that’s good enough for now, let’s enjoy some free time now, I deserve it”. But I have to remember that every hour counts, a well-used hour can change your whole year.
Thank you !!
Congrats! This is huge!
Thanks a lot!
congrats for this huge success...
Thank you!
Congratulations on such an impressive six months! What stood out to me the most wasn't just the list of achievements, but the mindset behind them. It's easy to admire the results—winning hackathons, contributing to open source, writing articles, speaking at events, and taking on leadership responsibilities—but those outcomes are really the product of consistent daily effort.
I also appreciate that you mentioned personal growth alongside technical progress. It's a good reminder that becoming a better developer isn't only about learning new technologies. Communication, discipline, collaboration, curiosity, and the willingness to keep improving often make an even bigger difference over the long run.
Your post is a great example that meaningful progress doesn't happen overnight. It comes from showing up every day, staying focused on your goals, and being patient enough to let small improvements compound over time. That's probably the most valuable lesson here.
Thanks for sharing your journey so openly. It's both motivating and refreshing to read a story that celebrates persistence rather than looking for shortcuts. Wishing you continued success, and I'm looking forward to seeing what your next six months bring!
Thank you for a great feedback!
Bravo!
You've improved and helped others along the way by focusing and gritting through difficulty during six months. This was super inspiring to read.
Do you have any articles about how you are able to make time for personal projects and building your career all while publishing somewhat regularly? I would love to read your tips for time management.
Great job on making such great progress in your life and in your work!
Thanks! I don't really have any articles specifically about that topic, but maybe one day I'll write one.
Great reminder that consistent execution compounds over time. The mix of building, writing, contributing to open source, and growing into leadership shows how diverse skills reinforce each other. Congratulations on an inspiring six months!
Thank you Anisha! And you’re spot on! The more diverse your skills are, the more they reinforce and complement each other, especially in today’s era of software engineering.
Congratulations 🎉🎉. These are high end achievements. I didn't achieve most of my own goals, but seeing this as really encouraged me. Hard work really does pay off. I also don't believe in too much luck, all what has happened to you for instance is as a result of continuously showing up and doing the work, bringing the results that have come your way.
Thank you so much! Appreciate your feedback!
Good Work Bro. That's Great. Keep Up the Good Work.
Thanks buddy!
Your Welcome! Bro.
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