DonTheDeveloper Podcast
DonTheDeveloper Podcast
How Overexcitement Derails Aspiring Developers
This episode explores why many aspiring developers who start with intense excitement and motivation often end up quitting. Overexcitement can lead to unrealistic expectations and burnout, derailing your coding journey. Learn how to recognize this pattern, set achievable goals, and build sustainable habits to successfully navigate the path to becoming a developer.
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Today I want to talk about a type of person that I come across in my mentorship sessions or that'll pop into my community, who is probably not going to get a dev job. Now, this might sound incorrect. A lot of people think that you need a lot of motivation to become a developer, and if you don't have that motivation, this might not be the profession for you. Right? You might need to really gauge whether this like coding, solving problems through code, being a software engineer is really something that you have the resiliency to pursue, because it's a very long path and, you know, if you really don't enjoy coding, you might not make it to the end of that path to land that first developer job. Now, you might think this because I've given this advice, right, but there's nuance in this advice. A lot of people think that if they don't feel high motivation, if they don't feel like an intense enjoyment in coding, a passion we hear this word a lot a passion for coding, that you're not meant to become a developer, and that is entirely, entirely untrue. You don't need to be passionate about this, you do need to enjoy it. If you don't enjoy it this is a long path you're probably going to give up right? I'm just talking about the average person. You will probably give up. Of course there are exceptions to that rule, but you're most likely going to give up if you don't even enjoy it. But I come across someone who sometimes I would do kind of like I used to do sales what would you call them Like kind of like pre-sales calls for my mentorship, where we would just figure out if it's a good fit. And it was just kind of an initial free session. And this is when I was still ironing out how to weed people out to make sure that I'm actually being paired with people that I can actually help, that I'm going to provide value with with my mentorship sessions. But I used to come across people that would get really excited, like they are. Just, they have a burst of motivation. I really want to become a developer. I am going to code 12 hours a day. I'm going to code six to seven days per week and I, you know, even with my full-time job, I am going to be able to dedicate 20 to 30 hours per week. I love this. I am so passionate about coding.
Don Hansen:Almost all of those people gave up. If I had to give an estimated percentage, it's probably 99% of people to really paint a picture. I don't know exactly why it is, but I can tell you for certain that we could dig into why that is. You can kind of see, or at least try to avoid some of the pitfalls that have kind of held people like this back. But for some reason people like this just that they experience high intensity, emotion. They experience like high highs and high lows, and I think that's what it comes down to Like. They are just really in the present and they can feel things strongly and when they get that burst of motivation they feel very high on that motivation. They're probably the same types of people that'll watch motivational videos just to get them all pumped up. They're probably the same types of people that'll watch motivational videos just to get them all pumped up. And if you're this person, you might realize you're watching a lot of these videos over and over and over to keep that motivation high.
Don Hansen:Eventually, the type of developer that ends up at that finish line is the type of developer that just enjoys what they do but builds good habits. They don't just lean on riding that high motivation, they're realistic, they analyze their current situation. How much available time do I really have when I get off work. Can I really dedicate four to five hours after an eight-hour shift every single day? That's really unrealistic, right? When essentially and that's what it comes down to is it's unrealistic expectations that people set for themselves. That's just really unhealthy and it's not sustainable. And when people come to me and they're like I'm going to dedicate again four to five hours after work and I am going to just crank out this code and I'm going to learn significantly and I'm they just don't understand that they can't just cram everything in and they're going to have to balance that mental. They're going to well, they're going to have to understand their mental energy and how much they have available after a full-time job.
Don Hansen:Right, it's people that are like you know what, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, I have to do this task at work and I am mentally drained. I am not even going to touch coding. I'm going to come home. I'm going to spend time with my family. Love my kids. They kind of helped me decompress. Love my wife, love my husband. I am just going to chill out. We're going to watch a bit of Netflix and that's okay, right, but Wednesday, man, I don't have a hard day on Wednesday, or Friday is a really easy day. Yeah, I'm. I might have to give up going out on Friday, but I have a lot of mental energy. I'm going to take advantage of that.
Don Hansen:It's that kind of mindset that I see among successful developers people that eventually land that first developer position. I want you to be really, really careful. If you are the type of person that I'm describing, where you just feel incredibly motivated, super hyped up, I'm going to dump 80 hours a week into this, I quit my job, I'm going to dump 80 hours a week into this and I am just going to get that job in six months because I am outworking everyone, you most likely are going to fail. You're going to burn out. Almost no one can overcome burnout Without truly understanding habits and their available mental energy and taking advantage of certain times and days throughout the week where you can actually be productive.
Don Hansen:People that go to the end are people that have built up a system, a schedule. They know themselves very well, they know their weaknesses, they know their strengths very well. They know their weaknesses, they know their strengths and they build a system. And even it comes down to decluttering your desk and maybe going to a different location because your noise is homey or your home is noisy and you are just setting yourself up for success because you know your weaknesses and you know how to set yourself up for success so you can have the proper attention to learn, to code, to reinforce that learning, and you just set your and you, you eat right. Maybe fasting works for you, maybe like a low carb meal, um, or like a low carb meal or like a high protein meal works for you. You figured out your body to be able to use your energy correctly, to be as productive as possible during key points throughout your week. That is what it takes to be successful. That is what it takes to become a developer.
Don Hansen:I want to reiterate you do not have to be passionate about this. I think you're going to quit if you don't enjoy it, but you don't have to be passionate about it. But I have people that are trying to that have requested to become like get into my mentorship sessions where they're just like you know what, don, and it's kind of like a high energetic kind of fun call. But I'm probably bring them down a bit because I'm pretty realistic by the end of it, but they're like if I have you by my side and I'm going to dedicate all these hours on top of my full-time job. I know I know you say like it might take two plus years to become a developer, but I know I can do it in six months because I have you on my side and I have all of this Um, like I, I'm passionate about this done. I am passionate, right, and I'll look at their GitHub a week later.
Don Hansen:They haven't coded anything they haven't complete. If I follow up with them, they haven't completed anything in their coursework. Nothing like that. Like you should be doing that on your own, without my help. And if you're not even doing that, like you are just riding the highs of motivation and you are probably someone that's just going to fail at this. Right, it doesn't mean there isn't another career path for you.
Don Hansen:I'm just telling you what I see is just a big red flag among aspiring developers is when you are just unrealistic about your situation, about your energy, about your motivation, your motivation will die. If you haven't checked it out already I have I don't even remember what it's titled, but a lot of you probably know the thumbnail like fuck your motivation, right, you shouldn't be relying on motivation and the intensity of that high. That motivation is not going to be reflective of how well you're going to do on your learning to code journey. So don't give yourself false confidence with that. Take it day by day. Give yourself several months to settle in and learn to code little by little. Don't give yourself a huge high expectation that you are going to be job ready in three months, going to be job ready in six months. Just set a consistent schedule to continue learning and growing and you will grow with that consistency. But let that excitement that build naturally give you little burst of motivation.
Don Hansen:Be careful, because I this is one other thing that I want to emphasize and this is where I reject some clients as well. I don't want you signing up and paying like an annual plan for a course because you're riding high in this motivation. I don't want you doing that for a coding bootcamp. Most certainly I don't want you seeking out paid mentorship, like my mentorship or anyone else, because you are just riding high in that motivation. I want you to get the value that you pay for but you don't even know what you really need when you haven't crawled through the mud and all the shit in the beginning of becoming a developer to realize if you even like it, if you actually want this as a career, years down the road and build that into a career 10, 20 years into the future.
Don Hansen:And now, granted, like 20 years is a bit far, but like, do you really want to deal with some of the shit of becoming a software engineer and the high pressure and constant learning to keep up and be marketable? And I think that's where some of this stems from too. I mean, sometimes people have a personality to just feel these high highs and low lows, but I think part of it is, um, you just have a misconception of what it's like to be a software engineer. You haven't experienced all the frustrations and feeling stupid and because you can't get past this bug and um, going into an interview and freezing up and not being able to present your skills well at all and getting frustrated with that or just getting tons of rejection. Like there's so much growth that's going to happen.
Don Hansen:As a software engineer, you have to pace yourself and that's really the key thing. You have to pace yourself. Stop looking up motivational videos. Just learn to code little by little on the days that you have off code on the side. Reinforce that, continue to build up that foundation so you can build from smaller to larger and more complicated projects over time, pace yourselves.
Don Hansen:So if you are someone that does get yourself incredibly hyped up and you have that you plan out an entire three month schedule and then you plan out unrealistic goals for yourself of time commitment and then you give up a week later, you know, if you're this type of person and that should be a red flag to you, it doesn't mean you're not going to become a developer, but it means you are not in sync with yourself enough. You haven't built up good enough habits over time to really make this path efficient for yourself, and so that should be a signal like, hey, let's pull back, let's just focus on today. Here are my goals today. Okay, cool, I accomplished my goals today. Let's go ahead and do a two-day goal, a three-day goal, a week goal, right and keep pushing yourself.
Don Hansen:And if you fail that one-day goal, if you fail that two-day goal, if you fail that week goal or that month goal, analyze why you failed that. What did you fail about it? Is it unrealistic? You know, maybe you've you gotta dig into goal setting, like, maybe you're trying to set your goals based off of outcome. I'm gonna get a job here instead of I'm gonna code for 10 hours per week and I'm gonna apply for this many positions and I'm gonna do company research for like 80 of these positions. And like your goals should be set based off of what you can actually do and what you can control.
Don Hansen:Maybe goal setting is another thing you have to work on, but a lot of people need to just analyze how their week went. Are you proud of the work that you've done? If not, why not? And what is affecting your productivity? What is affecting you failing to build better habits for yourself?
Don Hansen:It truly is a self-analysis journey and I'm telling you a lot of people that eventually land that developer position. They have grown significantly and I'm very proud of you for anyone that has grown significantly and I'm very proud of you for anyone that has. But pace yourself and if what I've described is a bit of a red flag question, look kind of just like analyze previous attempts to try to accomplish something. Are you just riding high in motivation and you're eventually going to quit because you don't really have a true understanding of how you work and your productivity and you don't set proper goals and you have unrealistic expectations. Catch yourself early so that you can set yourself up for success in the long run with your learning to code journey. So I just want to give you a heads up. If you are this type of person, that's okay. There are very high energy people like this, but you might need to ground yourself a bit more and be more pragmatic about your approach. I hope that helps.