This article is to remind me about my mistakes in 2022 😫 and How would I save this year from those mistakes. So if you want to procrastinate your task and want to read the transcripts of my rant proceed further, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED! 💀
The Difficult Start ⛰️
It all began when I gave my resignation on 21st December 2021, and was serving my notice period. I didn't have any job offer, but I took the risk and moved on and resigned. Day after day I was giving the interview and getting 'no' for an answer, good thing is my notice period was 90 days which means more opportunities to fail in interviews 😋.
Learning: Use your rejections as fuel and motivate yourself to learn more
Mistake: Better prepare for your interview first instead of preparing later
But during my last month of notice period, I moved to my hometown due to some tragic events and lived there for a month. Now at this point, I was at my lowest point both mentally and physically. I was also out of my Job with nothing in my hand not even my salary.
But I was feeling free and light like a person flying in Redbull's ad.
Learning: Don't take stress just chill dude 🥶
Suddenly an opportunity struck me, got a message saying
Got the job because of my terrific, unmatched skills. Also, they had an urgent requirement and I was ready to join next week.
Learning: Post your learnings on LinkedIn increase your network
New Journey 🚶♂️
I began my journey on 1st April as a contractor in the new company. I was still dealing with anxiety and this job acted as a hook and diverted my mind from the trauma I faced.
The bad thing this was temporary for 3 months, but I was happy because I feared long commitments and company Bonds😬
I was working on a React project, in my previous company I used to work on some shitty tasks and at night I used to build apps using React. Now I'm getting paid to build in React, I was more than happy.
Learning: Complete your work diligently so that you can brag about it in your next interview'
I worked my asses off 😤 and got an extension in the contract for 3 more months, Now at this point I became good at converting Figma design to React components, and also started handling the CMS of the website. I learned so much more in those 3 months that I haven't learned in the past year.
Learning: Before asking a question do your own research first(google/stackOverflow), ask a precise and clear question also mention what have you tried
Since I was earning per hour, I became more aware of my time.
Learning: Value your and other's time, make yourself accountable for every hour
The most important skill for a developer is productivity, you need to make a conscious effort to improve your productivity. There are various methods to do that like automating redundant tasks, using extensions, or anything that lets you complete more in less time do that.
Mistake: Not being productive enough need to compensate my after office hours for my work
UnStable Diffusion
My contract period was just about to complete and I worked on 5 various fields in my project and got lots of exposure.
Learning 'Step out of your comfort zone and never shy away from responsibilities'
But I was very confident that I will land a full-time opportunity in my company so I never applied anywhere, this was a foolish mistake. I didn't have the leverage and I sucked during my negotiation. I got the offer but it wasn't up to my expectations
Learning Nothing bad in exploring other opportunities
After a week of thinking and irritation, I gulped the offer letter and started working full-time, this all happened around September. The next month was like a honeymoon period coz my work-life balance got fixed, and I had more time for other activities, so I started building projects.
The fairy tale of Projects
I started brainstorming for groundbreaking ideas but found none, at last in the last week of the hackathon started my project and failed miserably. Various reasons tech was new, debugging was difficult, and My expectations were high 🍃 💨
Pro Tip:
Always start with fixed requirements for your project
Set a timeline for the events
Don't wait for the deadline
Just start GODAMMIT there is no golden Idea
Luckily enough I was able to make something to show, and the days passed as is while working on multiple things. Not because I'm talented I was not at peace with my inner self, I guess because of the offer that I took.
Merry Go Round
I started doing various things ( Gymming, learning android, doing open source, preparing for exams, and making another groundbreaking project ), and I got so confused🤯 I had no clue what I'm going to do in my life.
I was feeling bad because I haven't made any remarkable things to show, I thought I wasn't making any progress in my career, and I'm feeling guilty because I was not able to complete my 11 overdue tasks in todolist, not able to create content, just mindlessly scrolling through the youtube every day.
I'm just a procrastinative pathetic ass, then I saw a video of a guy sharing his fitness journey, How he got from fat to fit. I started binging fitness videos and remembered my resolution of having a fit body. On the very next day, I went to the gym that I abandoned a month ago after 2 days.
Watched Hamza realized about the top 1% group and decided to fix my body first. 'Started slowly with humble expectations for myself' is one more learning.
Motivation doesn't work but discipline will, so I started building discipline no matter the conditions I went to the gym, whether it was late because of office or I'm not in the mood, deliberately forced myself to step out and do my thing.
Of course in the beginning to need to go slow, and start progressive loading thereafter(fitness lingo: increasing the weights overtime to push your limits)
Learning: Make small goals take action
After building one discipline I wanted to end the year by building something fun, so I downloaded flutter and started building my sudoku. It's not release complete but I was able to complete the beta.
Conclusion
I will bookmark this and remind myself of these learnings and mistakes, let's see what I can avoid this year.
#DevRetro2022