5 Tips To Help You Stay Motivated While Learning To Code

Journeying into tech as a beginner, you sometimes might feel at your lowest and feelings like not knowing what you are doing happens. The thought of giving up ticks in, the feeling of frustration sets in and it feels as though you are not making any progress.

Everyone goes through these phase at some point in their learning path and you should try as much as possible not to beat yourself up about it. So what do you do to keep pushing and not letting go? Its simply by staying motivated while you learn to code. In this article, I will be sharing 5 tips to help you stay motivated in your learning journey.

Here is an outline of the tips I will be discussing later on;

Remember your why.
Set realistic goals for yourself.
Avoid burnout as much as you can.
Join a tech community.
Do you!

1. Remember Your Why

Whenever the thought of giving up arises probably because you are having a hard time grasping the concepts of your code or things are not just going as planned, you should always remind yourself why you decided to dive into this journey in the first place.

It could be anything; it could be that you wanted a good paycheck so you could support your family, or maybe you admire the flexibility that comes with tech jobs, or you want to freelance and not work under anyone, it could be anything at all.

Personally, I do not enjoy the thought of waking up and preparing to go to the office which is one of the reasons I dived into tech. I wanted a career that would give room for flexibility. So each time I feel less motivated while learning, I remind myself it's either I get a job in tech or no job at all and it keeps me going.

2. Set Realistic Goals For Yourself

While learning, being able to set realistic goals gives you a sense of direction, it's more like the road signs that shows you where you are headed when driving. It will also help you stay focused and not get distracted by things unrelated to your learning path.

Now lets take a look at these two scenarios(A & B):

A - "I want to learn how to use the arrow functions in JS and apply it in a project this weekend"

B - "I want to learn the arrow functions".

The latter is a goal right but the former is actually much more realistic for it is specific and timely making it achievable.

3. Avoid burnout as much as you can

As beginners, we pressure ourselves way too much trying to rush up on learning so many things at once and do not take out time to rest when we need to which can gradually lead to burnout. You can avoid burnout by practicing the following;

When stuck with your code, take breaks either by taking a nap or a brief walk to cool off.
Quit pressuring yourself, do not rush, rather stay consistent.
Eat healthy.
Do not forget to exercise as well.

4. Join a tech community

This will help you network as well as socialize with like-minded individuals in your career. You get to ask questions when you feel stuck, engage in valuable conversations and you can as well share your knowledge regardless of your skillset. Below are some examples of welcoming tech communities to join;

5. Do you!

Try as much not to compete nor compare yourself with anyone, you are your own competition. Focus on your realistic goals, channel your effort towards achieving them and become really good at what you do.

Bonus tip always track your progress and celebrate small wins as well. You can track your progress by writing out things you have achieved so far while learning in turn helping you stay motivated in your journey.

I really hope you find these tips helpful.

Thanks for reading!.