Did you ever find yourself suited up to jump in the pool, excitement pushing you to the edge, when all the sudden excitement turns to dread as your big toe hits the cold water and you are filled with regret. "This was a terrible idea," you think.
Remember when you first started learning how to drive? Pulling out of the driveway was always the most terrifying part of the journey. What about driving a stick shift? Its the worst to finally have the car running smooth and you'd hit that dreaded stop light only to struggle out of first all over again.
How about skiing? I swear the worst part is getting off the lift thinking, "Shit... I have no idea what I'm doing" (of course you do it anyways because you're at the top of a damn mountain and there's no other option -- besides pansying down the lift, but who does that).
Did you ever go bungee jumping? Sky diving? There's this crazy, soul-deep aversion to it, a buildup of nerves before you jump which nearly convince you to step down.
With all of these experiences, it's never the actual DOING that was hard, it was dealing with the devil in our own heads telling us not to even try. Basically, that's what coding is like (minus an aversion to heights screaming at you to find the ground and kiss it). As soon as I stop coding, I start to get cold feet. A doubt in my own abilities creeps in and shadows my past accomplishments and my future aspirations. Web developing is downright scary, because we are faced with the knowledge that there will forever be more learning than learned. So how do we deal?
This regenerative fear of not being enough is a shell around all of the things we can accomplish can be daunting to say the least, but not impossible to overcome. I have three bits of good news for anyone struggling with this.
1. Believe in your own growth - Intelligence is not static, and neither is talent. Thankfully, our ability to learn goes far beyond genetics and youth. The stigma that "smart" and "stupid" are fixed traits is 100% false. You should be your own biggest fan. Start by getting some pom poms, if need be.
2. Habit forming starts small - If coding scares you, do it regularly. Think in code when you perform an action. Stash your life into arrays and hashes. Most of all, type code regularly. It doesn't really matter what you are coding, just that you are building muscle memory. The more familiar we are with an action, the less hesitant we are to commit to it.
3. Personal stakes can carry you - There will inevitably be times you want to give up. What stops you? Goals that would hurt to go back on. Make coding matter to your life. Quit your job. Code for charity. Find something you believe in and make your code valuable to that cause. Pressure, when applied correctly, can be a very useful tool.
My biggest realization since beginning my journey as a web developer has been that I will never be underwhelmed again. It's this great and terrible beauty that am starting to embrace. When the struggle gets real, I am reminded that I chose this, and I find comfort in the simple fact that learning new things is inherent in this field, something to be celebrated.