Staying motivated when learning gets tough

Serena Chana
23 Code Street
Published in
3 min readSep 13, 2018

Student Spotlight| Kelly Jacobson Collins is currently taking part in our pilot webinar course. The course is now over halfway through and Kelly’s sharing what’s helping her stay motivated while learning to code.

Kelly with her family 💛

It’s been a while since I’ve done any formal learning; when I graduated from university Three Lions was number 1 (for the first time), the Spice Girls were on the rise and John Major and Bill Clinton were in power. Over the years I’ve tried to teach myself Italian and completed many management/presenting with confidence/negotiation/dealing with conflict type courses at work and recently completed the Digital Mums Digital Retox. But coding is totally new, way out my comfort zone and my brain hurts!

The learning curve is a funny thing as it tricks and fools you along the way. At times you feel like you’re flying and you’re finally getting it (high fiving yourself at the kitchen table when your code works) and then the learning curve throws you a curveball and the wind is knocked out of your sails. Suddenly you are in the dip of the curve, feeling down and like you’re never going to get it and then out the blue you start growing in confidence again as something that never clicked before falls into place.

Some of Kelly’s motivational code!

The past 4 weeks since I last wrote the blog have been tough: a combination of the school holidays (and a family holiday) limiting the time I could spend practising, and finding some of the new stuff just really hard to follow. Learning at home, with the flexibility to watch webinars as and when you wish, means you have to stay focused to keep on track.

The following are tips and techniques that I’ve used to get back on track:

  • Have a clear reason or goal for undertaking the course
  • An accountability partner/group can be really helpful
  • Tell people that you’re doing the course/going to complete the project. Like secret resolutions, secret courses & projects are less likely to be completed than resolutions you shout about from the rooftop
  • Have a learning calendar or schedule — mark the time in your diary/iCal/google calendar when you are going to spend time on the course or project
  • Stay mindful on how good you will feel when you achieve your goal/complete your project rather than allowing your mind to fixate on how hard it is right now
  • Writing the blog — it would be a bit embarrassing to drop out halfway
Paul (Kelly’s husband) and her two boys crabbing in Porlock

The other technique I’ve used is to do some revision, to go back over earlier weeks to refresh myself rather than just ploughing forward with a lost feeling. 23 Code Street offers a great deal of support too. You can always reach out to Anisah or a course tutor on Slack with a question or by sharing your code and they’ll come back to you to help you out.

For example, I’ve recently found learning about Git and GitHub challenging. It’s not only that typing in my Command Prompt unnerves me but understanding all the new commands too. I love the idea that I’ll be able to collaborate with others, and that people can share my code (at this point I dream of the day someone would want to use my code).

However, I cannot use it without pondering who on earth called it Git, why no one in marketing googled the word for its meaning in other major countries and will I ever be able to type the words “git init” without saying them in my head in a mockney accent (innit)? 23 Code Street have kindly arranged a 1-2-1 tutorial to help me out and get me up to speed.

If you’re interested in studying with us, click here to find about our Webinar Course starting next month or send us an email to hello@23codestreet.com.

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