Sick, Stuck, Getting Out of the Rut!

You Can Do This!
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Hey campers,

Just making a quick post so I don’t distract myself more than necessary. I’ve enjoyed reading other’s motivational posts as they come across the feed here, and I hope that sharing my past few weeks will help others on their journey as well.

Backstory: I have two young children, one boy who is only 2 months old right now. I’m newly engaged, saving for a house, turned down a promotion at work, put in my notice that I’m leaving to join the tech field, can’t find a tech job anywhere in my area, and the whole family has been sick for the past 3 weeks. I’ve been in a fever state for over a week now and had to work every day due to my management position and already being short-staffed on supervisors to cover.

I’m.
Burned.
Out.

Physically and mentally. I haven’t progressed on any fCC courses in over two weeks. I load up the JavaScript lessons and can’t remember anything I’ve worked on. I’ve been avoiding working on any projects because I feel like I have to learn JS or I’m just wasting my time. I browse the forums almost every day and tell myself I’m learning by reviewing what others get stuck on.

This brings us to today. Well, tonight. I’m not going to force myself to do JavaScript. I’m not going to review posts that I don’t understand. I’m not going to read another 6 articles about programming that don’t apply to me because I’m not actually doing any programming. I’m not going to feel bad about not progressing for the past 2-3 weeks. Lastly, I’m not going to worry about how quickly or how much I need to learn to force myself into a new job before I’m ready.

I’m going to go back to my old projects, fork them, and rework them using the dozens of hours I’ve put in since completing them. I’m going to put those 100+ articles I have read and saved on Evernote to actual use. I’m going to build something because I have learned more than enough to make a heckin’ good front-end for a website. I’m not going to continue telling myself the “right thing to do” is continue brute forcing my way through lessons that I do not remotely have the right headspace for.

I was excited to learn JS, and I will be again in the future. We all need a break sometimes. Time to pull back, refocus, and remember why we’re pushing through the hard stuff to begin with. When I have a website I’m proud of, and I can look at it and see where it needs scripts to improve it, that will be a pretty good reason to learn something, don’t you think?

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Sounds solid. Best of luck to you! :muscle: :muscle:

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I think you’re making the right decision and you are taking good care of yourself!

Go for it!

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Practice is great. What I tell myself is that even a little bit each day is still moving forward. Never stop moving forward!

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Hey, @shadew, I can relate to what you are saying :roll_eyes:, I was on a learning streak since december, but last month it all became too much. Learning, working, household, kids, family, … and a bunch of other things, it is hard to combine all these. Finding the right balance is key probably.
Switching when you are burned out can help, I just decided to lower my pace a bit and focus on other this like my kids, the house, some gardening to give my mind some rest.
Listen to your body :wink:.
thank you for sharing your story :+1:.

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It’s a marathon, not a sprint! I paused free code camp for literal years because I got a job working with kids that made me sick all the time while my immune system adjusted, then people convinced me the fact that I stopped meant I wasn’t meant to be a developer after all. Then got really into a competitive hobby I’d neglected while trying to brute force my way into tech. Then got into art. Every so often just doing simple code pens or contributing at hackathons. Then I noticed the curriculum has been improved a lot and my financial situation has not, so I came back and was doing even better than before. Of course, staying up late staring at a screen too much means I can only take a month before it’s back to getting an instant migraine at the sight of a map reduce function and being on the verge of sleep all throughout the daylight hours no matter how much stimulants in my bloodstream. But that’s my own damn fault from getting mega into it again instead of taking it easy. But the thing is, a lot of the hard stuff is easy for me now, even the new stuff! I think it got so easy because of all the passive learning from when it was just a hobby among other pursuits. Or learning to make art mutated my brain??

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