And… That’s a hat trick!

August 2016 · 5 minute read

2016 was meant to be my year…

I saw the new year in relatively sober and was off like a shot! Alas, those big aspirations were not set to come to fruition just yet. Some of you may have seen these words before, earlier in the year when I wrote about how devastated I was to have failed at everything I’d tried and that my life was pretty much over.

Well, it’s safe to say I exaggerated. I was going for the golden triangle. I’d set myself three tasks and a deadline of three months and to be fair they were all very do-able tasks and the time frame was going more than according to plan.

Three times in a row, though, I failed. Not like, a bad fail. Worse than that. Three times in a row, and after all that hard work and in the space of about two weeks right before my deadline, I failed by three near misses. I was so close! And after the third goal didn’t quite work out, I remember feeling so empty. I just didn’t know what to do with myself.

Luckily I had plenty of support around me. Genuinely good people with positive attitudes towards what it is that I’ve been trying to do all this time. And it’s funny, now when I think about it. The support has actually been quite overwhelming!

Thanks to them and my own drive I didn’t give up! And I’m finally starting to see some progress.

It only took twice as long as I’d initially aimed for it to take but I got my hat trick in the end. I’m a certified AWS developer associate, a professional ( and now apparently somewhat sought after 😉 ) developer and I have officially won an amateur Muay Thai fight with the next already lined up.

It seems almost every week I have a new follower, mentor or contact with whom I can relate to on a large scale, not only in terms of getting my career underway but in an intellectual capacity too.

Maybe my attention is finally attracted to the direction I want to head in or maybe I just know what I’m looking for now. Either way, I’m finally starting to feel like I fit in. Only took nearly 28 years but hey, I’ve finally stopped segregating myself from the rest of the kids in the class.

Some people have supported me since the day they heard about my venture towards becoming a professional programmer and some have gone out their way, even on limbs to help me as best they could. For those people, I have an endless gratitude.

The more time goes on, the more people seem to be keen to offer up their opinions and take an interest. Some of the people throwing advice in my direction, I’ve never even met in real life.

The positivity, from all those people, many who I might never meet and some of whom I’ve only had brief interactions. These people are reaching out to me and offering words of kindness and support and most importantly of encouragement.

I can’t explain the feeling of how cool it is every time someone from the other side of the world, who’s been programming their whole life reaches out to you, tells you they’ve read your blog and that they’re touched by how difficult you found your first-ever week as a programmer to be. Or when accomplished engineers, CTOs and Managing Directors of IT firms send you a message to say “Keep going, you’re not alone. Many of us feel the same, over and over again in our careers too.” It always seems like others have it so easy, but really we’re all just human at the end of the day, and some of those humans ( or many, if you’re surrounded mostly by the right ones ) are actually not bad people.

These are people who are world class engineers with unbelievable intelligence and problem-solving ability and they’re taking the time out to talk to me?! And they genuinely want to have a conversation with me! And they genuinely like me, and all the geeky that comes with me too! ( not that I’m as big of a geek as I thought, apparently. But that’s another story ).

I don’t think I’ve done or am doing anything special but I guess everything in life is relative and now that I’m starting to pick up some momentum and it must be time for a new challenge and some new goals!

Whatever path I’m on right now has suddenly reached a slight decline and I’m starting to pick up some speed! I feel as though I’m running around like a child on a sugar rush doing and seeing all these new exciting things, travelling, partying, meeting and greeting, working ( which doesn’t really feel like work, it feels more like playing games ( I am actually working though :p ) ), barely sleeping.

It’s like my schedule is running on overdrive to try and fit everything in, although I’m essentially doing less now than I was when I was technically doing more in Wellington.

Self-reward following an accomplishment is necessary and should definitely be factored into any success plan but it is possible that I’m starting to loosen up too much which may cause a reduction in efficiency so it’s probably best to refactor those schedules before they get out of control. And the never ending battle with my sensible self-continues…

I know I worked hard to get here and I should take it easy for a bit but I just don’t think it’s wise to relax too much during the first 3-4 months of a new job in a new career. Although I can’t really push forward until I have some new goals set in place and I just can’t seem to focus on devising those just yet. I think I’m still too distracted with this whole new big city that I’ve barely found time to explore.