THE #1 THING Stopping You From Improving as a Programmer

so let me know if this sounds like you you want to become a better programmer or software engineer so you're asking around about all of the best books that you can go read you're trying to find all the right YouTube channels to subscribe to and you're searching for all these boot camps that are going to promise that you can get to be an expert within a few weeks and in this video I'm going to explain why you're holding yourself back but first I wanted to start with a story so outside of programming and software engineering my biggest hobby is actually going to the gym when I was growing up I was never really into sports I'm still not today but I ended up falling in love with going to the gym early on in high school and I'm a pretty small guy so for me I took it pretty seriously that I could go learn all the right things to do to try and get bigger and stronger in the gym so this meant that I was reading all of these Forum posts and articles all of the time trying to find the best way that I could structure my workout plan how many days a week to go lift weights how many rest days I need if any all the right foods to try and eat to optimize things and I put a ton of energy into trying to go learn as much as I could but after literally years of doing this I still found that I wasn't making a ton of progress in the gym like I would have wanted to and I was really confused about all the things I was reading because there were so many different opinions and everyone seemed to be right because everyone was big and strong except me and this brings me to what I think is holding you back because I think it's the exact same thing and this is analysis paralysis this is actually super common for people I would say especially when it comes to trying to learn a skill and get better at something because of course we want to go acquire as much information as possible to arm ourselves to be able to do a good job in the thing we're trying to get better at from my story that was going to the gym and your story is actually trying to be a better programmer or software engineer so all of us learn in different ways and I don't want to sit on the other side of this camera and say what I'm about to tell you is going to be the best way for everyone to learn because that just doesn't make sense but something I do feel that is universally true is the more we practice things the better we get at them so yes it might be true that if you're going to read all of these articles and you're spending a lot of time watching videos and researching that sure you can actually gain a lot of knowledge and information and be able to transfer that into the skills you want like programming and software engineering however I think if that's your only focus right now that you're probably missing out on one of the best opportunities to improve and that's to practice it so I get asked all of the time especially from people that are more Junior in terms of software engineering in their programming Journey but this could even be people that are in industry and transferring into an area that I'm familiar with and it always comes down to like what's the best resource for me to go learn about this and there's plenty of resources right I mean if you're watching this now you found me as a resource on the internet making videos about software engineering and programming there's lots of other people making content lots of great information out there and plenty of things for you to learn to help you along the way however if you're stuck in this pattern of constantly just trying to acquire the information and you're not finding time to go apply it I think that this is a missed opportunity and fundamentally could be the number one thing holding you back from getting better so am I suggesting that you stop watching YouTube videos you turn this one off right now and start programming you throw out all of your books you unsubscribe from the courses that you wanted to take online about how to program absolutely not I think if you're finding those things valuable and you're actually gaining information insights and you're practicing that way that's totally fine I'm not here to tell you to stop that however I am here to tell you that I think you should start practicing by building things so these don't have to be mutually exclusive you don't have to stop all the other stuff you're doing I just think that you should start this part so you're sitting there going well Nick that's nice but I don't know what to build and that's cool because a lot of us have no idea what to build too it's really rare that we stumble upon something where we're like this is gonna be awesome I can't wait to go build it and I think a lot of that comes from people in software where they're trying to think about the next big idea and like you can't do something unless you can monetize it or it's going to be huge and that's kind of like it's just not really realistic I've been programming for over 20 years and the number of ideas that I've had personally where I'm like oh man I think that could be something really cool or really big it's very few however I have built tons of things I built tons of things that I've thrown away after a week or a day of just working on them and for me that's been a really good opportunity just to learn about something so for example if you were watching a video and say it's from one of your favorite YouTubers like Nick chapsis and he's talking about a cool new.net feature awesome go watch that video go try to take in that information and then pull up visual studio and then try using it try building something with that it doesn't have to be the coolest new thing the best new you know as p.net website or service that everyone's going to use and you're going to make millions of dollars from it don't put that kind of pressure on yourself try building something that leverages the things that are being discussed what's really cool about that is if you have a couple of really basic programs that maybe you go back and revisit and you try to implement some new things that you're learning about this just gives you a bit of a playground where you can start experimenting so for me personally I really love role-playing games I'm a huge like Diablo nerd I've always loved role-playing games and I thought when I started programming I was like I'm gonna make a super cool role-playing game and I started and it's been 20 years and it's still not done but I always go back to that role-playing game when I find that I have time and I want to learn about things and practice them and I use that as my playground to try out new patterns new practices and explore it's my number one way to learn because I get to just keep practicing and not focused on how am I going to sell this all these other constraints and stuff that are totally outside of just learning so for you that might be a mobile app that might be a website it could be something as simple as a console application or making a library that you want to reuse in some of your other programs it does not have to be anything special and you don't have to stop doing all the other stuff you're doing but I do think that you should start applying the things you're learning so that you can practice them aside from prodigies that seem to just come out of nowhere and have these amazing skills that they never had to practice everyone else has to practice to get better so we can't become experts at our craft without putting in the time so that boot camp that promises you'll be an expert in a couple of weeks probably not going to happen it doesn't mean that it's not going to help you or that it's not valuable it just means have realistic expectations and if you want to get better at programming and software engineering you need to be doing it you need to be practicing you need to be building so I'm I'm still not the biggest and strongest guy in the gym I probably never will be and that's okay but after a long time of practicing and going and being consistent I am bigger and stronger than I used to be and I bet you my past self looking at me now would go wow like you actually made a lot of progress and I think you can say the same thing about your programming and software engineering Journey if you just take some time to practice apply the things you're learning and see that get better over time with consistency so stop holding yourself back get out of the analysis paralysis start building some stuff so I hope you enjoyed this and we'll see you next time foreign