Feeling Lost After Layoff, Need Advice on Re-Learning and Staying Motivated

You Can Do This!
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Hey everyone,

I’m reaching out because I’m feeling a little discouraged lately and could use some advice from the community. I recently got laid off from my first tech job after about a year, and it’s been rough.

Originally, I jumped into coding with the dream of becoming a game developer, but I quickly realized I needed more experience. So, I pivoted to web development and learned the .Net stack. I felt pretty confident with it, but at my first job, I barely used most of what I learned for over a year. That gap, combined with the layoff, has me feeling lost and anxious.

Here’s the thing: I’m still passionate about coding and want to break back into the tech industry. My plan is to focus on getting better with my current stack, particularly building full-stack projects with frameworks like Angular and React for the front-end.

Since hosting back-end data can be expensive, I was thinking of using screenshots for those parts on my portfolio for now. Maybe focusing on some purely front-end projects could be a good start as well.

My ultimate goal is to specialize in a specific stack to land a job and then gradually expand my knowledge while staying current within that stack.

My question is this: How do you all stay motivated to learn and re-learn after work? Everyone seems to be coding all the time, but no one I know talks about studying or how they manage their time for it.

Any tips on staying encouraged as I re-learn what I’ve forgotten and tackle new things?

Feeling a bit lost and overwhelmed right now, but I’m determined to get back on track. Thanks in advance for any advice!

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I’m not sure if this will be of help, since I’ve not yet landed a job.

But I find some kind of routine sleep schedule, with three things I want to do in a day can help me stay motivated.

The three things I tend to do in the morning, tho its something new I’m trying.
I heard that doing something in the first 4 hours after waking up can make you more productive.
So far, its working. I find I’m often not awake enough to start worrying when I begin, and by the time I have woken up, my mind is focused on something else.
Even if its something I really don’t want to do, having started it in the morning, tends to make me think about it for the rest of the day, so I tend to keep going back to it.

There’s a lot of stuff on YouTube, developers talking about how to stay motivated. However it can feel like a 1-100 thing with the volume of information.
So I now just take it one thing at a time (1-2, 2-3 etc… baby steps)
If I hear something that might help, I put it on a list of things to try, and will see if I can integrate one of those into my life when I’m starting to struggle.

(after 6 months of slow integration, I’m now drinking more water, eating healthier, getting 8 hours of sleep and exercising, It still surprises me that these things do help. I’ve never been a healthy person before :confused: )

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Hi, You see its’normal. I’d quote Michael Allen (famous journalist and one of “ebver learners”): "Boring and effective are mutually exclusive attributes in learning.” I know that feelling. I used to burn out few times. I’m not so young :sweat_smile: Well, the family is my first and best motivation. When, after working day, I see my daughter she inspires me to make a new steps to move on. The second is the goal. You have it and that’s good. So keep in mind it and go to it. Do what you love and love whatt you do. Eveything else will be attached on your way to your goal. Ther are lot of techniques and pieces of advice how to stay motivated. But all of them are yet practices.