Stop Feeding The Ego
What you can do to avoid obsolescence in an ever evolving world: keep learning
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After twenty years in software engineering, I am still not that good at writing code.
The kind of weakness I exhibit nowadays is different than that of when I first started out, but it’s still there. Back then, it was about the basics of software engineering, the arrogance of implementing solutions without thinking about alternatives and the like. Today, it’s more about the slowness in which I pick up new technology, most likely thanks to my aging brain.
I have been looking at GatsbyJS recently to power my own website. It took me forever to pick up the basic concepts behind it, and I have yet to implement anything worthy of a “production” release. I often wonder if I can ever get good at it, and whether it is worth my time.
Should I give up? Have I reached a point in life where I am basically done learning new things? I am sure I am not the only one with this kind of thoughts.
The temptation is always there, lurking around the corners of one’s brain. After all, giving up is the easy option, and the one that least hurts your ego. You can’t fail if you don’t set up the opportunity to fail. But what is failure?
Failure is determined by others
Look, everybody’s got an opinion. Some will like what you do and some won’t. You cannot change that. Even Jimi Hendrix in his prime was sometimes dubbed as a fraud by critics¹.
Failure is mostly determined by measures set up by others, something you cannot change. What you can change is how you approach this so-called failure. As long as you learn lessons from the mistakes you make, you are moving in the right direction.
Don’t be afraid of your mistakes, as they are the best way to grow. Making a mistake does not mean you failed. It is the end result that counts, and what you learn along the way.
When starting something new, at first you’ll always suck
You can’t expect to paint like Van Gogh in your first sitting in front of an easel. Even if you have been painting for a while, picking up a new style or medium will undoubtedly mean countless hours of practice and lots of mistakes.
Give yourself time to learn a new skill. There’s much talk online about 1,000 hours or 10,000 hours of practice to become a master on a specific craft. The time it actually takes likely varies from person to person, but one thing is true for sure: it takes dedication.
Dedication means turning up even when it rains, constantly working at it until you get better, never giving up. Especially when you don’t succeed at first. Keep trying.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help
Some cultures believe that wisdom comes with age. That might be true for specific pockets of knowledge, but generally speaking wisdom comes from practice.
That means age and job titles don’t matter all that much. You will get more useful insights from a junior engineer who spent the past six months on a new technology than you would from a senior engineer who’s only been at it for one month.
In the process of learning, it’s OK to ask for help.
Often I see engineers refraining to ask for help because they think they will look like a fool, especially if the matter turns out to be trivial in the end. The truth is: most problems seem trivial once you know the solution. Don’t wait until you are at wit’s end to reach out for help.
Stop feeding the ego
And now let’s get to the key point of this article: the best way to avoid being left behind in an ever evolving world is to stop feeding the ego.
In order to be successful, you need to keep on learning. That’s the only way to figure out what the world needs from you and how to provide it. And in order to maximize your contribution, you need to cast aside the doubts you have about your ability to learn, and also about what others think of your journey.
The ego is crafty, though. It will throw a bunch of excuses at you when you stop feeding it. Some of these excuses will make a lot of sense too. These are known as viable excuses², a bunch of plausible explanations that the ego makes to hold us back. Here are some common viable excuses, alongside a challenge you can ask yourself:
I don’t have time
15 minutes are better than nothing. Can you find a 15 minutes break in your schedule?
I am too tired
Can you shift your schedule around? What is making you tired?
I will never be good / I will never be as good as ___
You will never know for sure until you try, but are you setting unrealistic goals for yourself? Try to take the journey in small steps. Rome wasn’t built in a day.
I need to do something else first
Which is more important? If both are, maybe you need a better schedule so that they do not clash with each other. Consider alternating days between these two activities.
These are only a few of the common excuses that hold people back. The ego often makes up very specific and detailed justifications for you not to do something. The important thing to remember is to challenge these excuses, and keep practicing, keep doing the work.
Thanks for sticking around till the end. I hope you enjoyed reading these brief thoughts on the importance of learning and reinventing oneself in order to stay current.
Before we go, I would like to leave you with a question / challenge: When is the last time you worked at your new skill? Can you put in 15 minutes today to work on it? Meanwhile, I am going back to my GatsbyJS project and learn some more.
Till next time, keep on learning new things and getting better every day!
References
[ 1 ] A Bad Jimi Hendrix Experience — Allan Holbert, Star Tribune, 1968
[ 2 ] The Virus That Keeps Us Normal — Jason Selk, Inc.
