Intentional Learning — — Episode 2.
Yes, Quit pep-talks — they don’t work.
Have you ever come across a situation where a skill is required and you totally have no idea how to do it but still you have to do it because you NEED the skill? For me YES! Coincidentally I came across The first 20 hours — how to learn anything by Josh Kaufman.
I attended Andela Open Day and I met an Andelan who when he realized I was to start my pre-boot camp the following week he asked if I had any problem. I wondered if he actually read through my mind as I totally had a number of them. First, my laptop crashed, second Flask Framework is something totally new to me. We had a conversation where he shared his story with me and that's what I needed to hear. It gave me a lot of confidence.
Building Endpoints was a task I had no clue about, no idea where to start from, but I decided to relax and not think about the lack of the skill but for it as an opportunity to grow. I had been in a process where I didn’t know what to do next for a task, but I followed instructions, asked teammates, googled and moved with baby steps.
I kept hearing of API, API endpoints, consuming APIs and all this got me overwhelmed but being HONEST is an inborn trait in me(not bragging :-)smiley) and so the guy sitting next to me at that point seemed to have done all these stuff and he is a “guru” and I decided to be honest, asked him to explain to me in layman’s language what an API/API endpoints and consuming API is as I was not able to figure out logically what they were. And that was the start of my Intentional Learning — -Episode 2
First things first, I took my time to read through the challenge, understand it and use tutorials to familiarize with what is expected of me as output. Below are the steps I took(I bet it works for any new skill that involves practical implementation);
- I wrote all user stories/features as required in the project — this helped outline and define the tasks into small manageable tasks
- I did a todo list(in a paper/book) of what I need myself to do step by step(including the small tasks such as reading something first, asking a quiz) and guess what! All this made me feel I could do whatever seemed tough ahead of me
- I started working on each todo as I ticked each achieved todo. Always know all that you need to complete the task.
- I ensured I achieved something each and every day, however minimal it was. Don’t push scheduled tasks to the next day, just do something about it on the same day.
Things were flowing as I came to understand all that is expected of me, and here came PRACTICAL implementation of what I understood. I thought understanding was 60% of the task, unfortunately, it was just 40%, the rest was a practical implementation(I am speaking of endpoints). Initially, I spent 3/4 of my night trying to implement as I learned from tutorials. When stuck, I would go to slack and direct message any person who was awake, I did a number of direct messaging to multiple people that night and it was all worth it. At some point, I felt I had reached ‘the elastic limit’, but that’s when I did a pep talk of ‘growing seeds never stop germinating, even if a rock is above them’.
Finally, I did it!!!!
Next was writing tests, and I needed to take a break and work later.
Next episode coming soon……..
