Tips to get Reinspired on your Coding Journey

Coding is hard, sometimes you wanna just flip your keyboard, walk away and never come back. Other days you wake up in the morning thinking of all the things you need to get done for school, bootcamp, work, etc. and it sounds grueling. Lord knows I’ve been there wondering if I was really cut out for this field, but I always come back and I never give up.

The aspect about coding that took me a bit to realize is that you are not just training to get a job that pays well, granted that’s a good reason, but you are changing the way you think and the way you look at the world around you, for the better I might add. Every Time I got down on myself I questioned everything, is this for me? Did I make a mistake? I can tell you right now this is for me and I did not make a mistake, the same goes for you too. Sometimes it takes a little extra effort to thrust yourself back on that horse and keep going, and just because you fell off doesn’t mean you shouldn’t get back on.

I am going to be sharing a few ways to get yourself re-inspired that have helped me on my journey so far. Some of these are a little difficult while others are easier but they all are helpful, if they helped me at least one of them can help you. Now before we get into these, if there’s anything I want you to take away from this article is this… it’s okay to lose inspiration, it doesn’t mean you’ve lost interest.

Movies & TV

This is the easiest tip of all of them, who doesn’t love lounging around watching tv and maybe getting inspired to code while you do!

Silicon Valley — Silicon Valley: Season 1 | Official Teaser | HBO

This is probably the most realistic of the tv shows, a comedy about a group of programmers making a start-up, it’s hilarious and you may even learn a thing or two!

Mr. Robot — Mr. Robot: Official Extended Trailer — Season 1

This thriller is about Elliot Anderson, a cybersecurity engineer by day, and a hacker by night. Trying to save the world from the top 1%.

The Social Network — THE SOCIAL NETWORK — Official Trailer [2010] (HD)

The story of Facebook, how it came to be, and what it did to Mark and others around him. This one is very powerful and really inspiring.

The imitation Game — The Imitation Game Official Trailer #1 (2014) — Benedict Cumberbatch Movie HD

Alan Turing, and how he created the Turing machine…need I say more?

There are many others I have not listed because this list could go on for a long long time. If any of these interest you check them out! You can look for others as well, there are plenty of curated lists of shows/movies for coders.

Healthy Lifestyle

This tip should be given to anyone, not just programmers. By a healthy lifestyle, I mean eating healthy, getting good sleep, exercising, etc. I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times in your life but for a good reason! Add one more reason to that, it can increase your productivity and reignite that inspiration. For me, I started going to bed earlier because I knew I wasn’t getting 8 hours of sleep every day, by mid-day I was ready for a nap, and coffee can’t fix everything! Then I moved on to exercising, I started going to the gym whenever I could telling myself at least 4 days out of the week. Exercising I found to be an immediate boost in inspiration, I would leave the gym with some great ideas and a need to sit down and get to work! Sidenote — it’s also great for debugging and other problems, thinking about them while exercising can give you a new perspective on the problem. Eating healthy, for me at least, is the hardest to follow but making an effort as much as you can will give you more energy and clearer thoughts. Try to cook for yourself or eat a salad instead of a burger every once in a while, you may be surprised by how much energy you gain.

Talking to others in the industry

Now I don’t mean arguing with others online about frameworks or languages. But talk to other programmers about what they are learning or what they are interested in. I have a friend that is a programmer, a few years ahead of me as well, and the past couple of weekends I have gone out we’ve sat at the bar talking code and the next thing I knew I was learning C++ from him! This could also mean meeting new programmer friends! But I don’t expect you to do that if you don’t want to. Surrounding yourself with people that have the same interests as you can be the best motivation and inspiration of all!

Don’t compare yourself to others

I’m sure this is another tip you have probably heard plenty, but again for good reason! Comparing yourself to others is a surefire way to lose all inspiration and motivation. I know sometimes this just happens, you see someone on Twitter just got a great new job or found some incredible breakthrough in the industry and you think “wow imagine if that was me”. I do have one good way to help yourself when this happens, if you catch yourself comparing stop and think back to where you were a year ago, where your code was a year ago. I’ve even gone as far as pulling up old repos and reviewing that code! I guarantee it will really put things into perspective for you.

Conclusion

One last thing I wanted to mention is that sometimes inspiration just comes to you. Work through those low points and you’ll wake up ready to grab your terminal by the reins and ride off into the binary sunset. The most important thing is to keep going and push through those lows and you’ll come out a better programmer. Finally, to reiterate from earlier it’s ok to lose inspiration, it doesn’t mean you’ve lost interest.