100 Days of Code — Resistance and Progress
Day 50/100
“Are you paralyzed with fear? That’s a good sign. Fear is good. Like self-doubt, fear is an indicator. Fear tells us what we have to do.”
Steven Pressfield — The War of Art: Break through the blocks and win your inner creative battles
It’s officially been 50 days since I began the 100 days challenge, and yet I struggled with the idea of writing this post. I’ll let my inner monologue say why:
“What can I say that hasn’t already been said by so many other (infinitely more) talented individuals? What can I offer when so many others are making much more progress than I am?”
That’s resistance at work. The nagging voice that tells you you’re not good enough. The doubt that remains after you’ve checked your code five times already, even after you complete an exercise.
Coding’s hard…that point’s been made and proved repeatedly. More than once I’ve dreamed about crossing that imaginary finish line when things got tough. Funny enough, Benjamin P. Hardy wrote an article about how doing this can actually make things worse.
With such a huge amount of information available, it’s so easy to get lost and frustrated. In these moments, it’s hard to remember that when the challenge began it was “code a little here or there…if there’s time.” If nothing else, I can say that I’ve done more in these past 50 days than in the past few months outside the challenge. And that’s the point — it’s not how you stack up against others, it’s how you, right now, compare to yourself before you started. I honestly wish I could remember who said that.
Don’t give into resistance, there’s only regret at the end.
See you again at Day 100!
Progress as of Day 50:
- Free Code Camp: On Basic Algorithm Scripting (Title Case)
- Codecademy JavaScript Track: 63% complete
- You Don’t Know JavaScript — Up and Going: Complete
- Eloquent JavaScript: Chapter 3
- Rejection Game Codepen: HTML complete, CSS complete, JS for scoring in progress
- Portfolio Page: In Progress
