Building Confidence

I never give up. I never ever ever give up. I have a pathological inability to give up. And I will not give up now. Things are tough. Things are hard. I have been thrown again (as always). Things are bad with my confidence. Adapting to a new language is hard. Adapting to a new team is hard. Adapting to working with new (wonderful) people is hard especially when you have a learning difficulty. I hate that word. But I get to use it. Ok? The hardest part for me is explaining to people how differently I learn.

No matter how hard I try to emphasise it - it takes people seeing the real challenges for it to have an effect. I always wish it didn’t have to get to that. Like now. I’m thinking about it all holiday. I feel it didn’t have to get to this point. But I guess that it did. As tech companies we can’t provision for every possible need that might come up - and it often takes issues arising to plan next steps for when a similar problem arises again 

And that’s just that. It’s just it. And there’s no-one to blame. Not even me. And it’s exhausting. But it has just been a lot doing it again and again in new teams. But that’s my choice right? I chose to become a software engineer. I chose to come back to frontend - admittedly I didn’t choose to be made redundant a year back - but I am so glad that it happened. Because it led me to where I am now. I work with a beautiful team.

I work with beautiful people omg. I love them so so much. I love them so much. Sorry.

So we have to make it work. And I have to make it work. And I know that I will. I know that I will. I work so hard. I am totally full on throughout the day. I give everything to my job. I give absolutely everything. I start so early, writing an update and reflecting on everything from the day before etc. I learn for an hour before starting work. Admittedly it’s a lot. I’m moving from a react course to a react project. It should be more interactive and less draining. Anyway thanks. And I will stay focused and I will following five steps and I will prioritise more and I will say no to things. Somehow. I don’t know

But again this is not the point of this blog post. The point of this blog post is this:

I am trying to build up my confidence. I am trying to build up my confidence. I am trying to build up my confidence. Oh my god 

When I was 21 I had a nervous breakdown.

I had to build up my confidence again from scratch. It took me years and years and years and years and years. But do you know how I did it? I focused on the positives. I focused on my strengths. I focused on my strengths again and again and again and again

And then again. 

So I guess I need to do the same with software engineering. Because now I am have a „software engineering nervous breakdown”. Any positives. Any wins. Anything. I clung onto every achievement I could. So this is what I will do again. And I am ready

So here we go

• I am amazing at the product side. I love the product and I get it completely. I am amazing at writing user stories and that whole side of stuff. A manager told me that that means I will be an amazing asset to any team 
• Another manager (and I am going to cry) who I regularly meet with 

I told him „the best thing about you is that you believe in me. And that is what I need the most right now. Someone who believes in me”. And he said: „well there’s sixteen other people in the team right now who feel this way.” How can I be down on myself when someone has said that to me? What a beautiful nice and kind and lovely thing to say. What a beautiful thing to hold on to

How beautiful that the whole team believes in me. I can’t believe it. And so I need to keep on using the team. 

And doing what I do best: being open and being vulnerable. And being honest. The truth is that I am not as open as people think I am. 

I am open about the things I want to be open about. And 

I have. Really great resource within my team.

I get to have a daily standup call and I get to do a daily written update in my team channel which quite amazingly people actually read. Which is so kind of them.

So I can be honest. And I can question myself. Am I on track? Have I been avoiding my ticket? Have I been following my five steps which I have created for myself to be following my ticket with? Because I need to prioritise

I need to prioritise hard. I need to put my tickets first. Everything else is secondary

Mug in the office

Thank you