Personally, one of the areas I struggle with is immersing myself in the online community. I can't tell you how many times I started typing something out, only to delete it (ironically, I almost did that with this comment). I think it comes with the introverted nature. :)
Meetups and conferences are serious game changers. I probably wouldn't have made the career transition (15 years as a dental tech, turned web dev/aspiring game dev) if it weren't for a Ruby meetup I went to. I tinkered a little bit before then, but never seriously put the time into it. After the first meetup I went to, I went all in and made the career change less than a year later.
Teaching is another one of my favorite things to do. When I started working at my current job, I found out a few people were interested in learning JavaScript, so I volunteered to teach them. I think teaching has a lot of benefits - it reinforces what you know, makes you dig deeper into code and ideas, helps you realize you know more than you realize, helps you learn more, etc.
And getting away from the usual is incredibly important. I'm an avid gamer, so even away from the work related stuff, I'm still looking at a screen a lot. But I also love hiking, and I've recently taken up biking. I've also started a weekly blog that combines my love of video games and teaching/education - basically talking about life lessons learned from video games. For me, fun projects like that act as a creative outlet and are completely different from regular work, so it's much more relaxing.
Kim Arnett [she/her] leads the mobile team at Deque Systems, bringing expertise in iOS development and a strong focus on accessibility, user experience, and team dynamics.
Sounds like you've figured it out too :) I hear you on deleting things - this post also almost got deleted, and look at all the great feedback I've had on it. lol.
Introverting is hard, but sometimes you just have to swallow, close your eyes, and press the button. :)
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I love this! A lot of great practical advice.
Personally, one of the areas I struggle with is immersing myself in the online community. I can't tell you how many times I started typing something out, only to delete it (ironically, I almost did that with this comment). I think it comes with the introverted nature. :)
Meetups and conferences are serious game changers. I probably wouldn't have made the career transition (15 years as a dental tech, turned web dev/aspiring game dev) if it weren't for a Ruby meetup I went to. I tinkered a little bit before then, but never seriously put the time into it. After the first meetup I went to, I went all in and made the career change less than a year later.
Teaching is another one of my favorite things to do. When I started working at my current job, I found out a few people were interested in learning JavaScript, so I volunteered to teach them. I think teaching has a lot of benefits - it reinforces what you know, makes you dig deeper into code and ideas, helps you realize you know more than you realize, helps you learn more, etc.
And getting away from the usual is incredibly important. I'm an avid gamer, so even away from the work related stuff, I'm still looking at a screen a lot. But I also love hiking, and I've recently taken up biking. I've also started a weekly blog that combines my love of video games and teaching/education - basically talking about life lessons learned from video games. For me, fun projects like that act as a creative outlet and are completely different from regular work, so it's much more relaxing.
Sounds like you've figured it out too :) I hear you on deleting things - this post also almost got deleted, and look at all the great feedback I've had on it. lol.
Introverting is hard, but sometimes you just have to swallow, close your eyes, and press the button. :)