Learning to Code Taught Me the Importance of Boundaries
Tags: beginners, mentalhealth, adultlearner, programming
Published: 2022-11-19 15:34:47

I have been on a learning to code journey for about 2.5 years now. I’ve been taking part time online classes at my local community college. I’ve built MERN stack projects (Instagram clone, Tinder Clone) but when it comes down to it, I still haven’t absorbed the information that is needed for me to build my own projects, explain it to other people, myself or be job ready. I am still in tutorial hell, people. 

I sat down a few months ago and thought about why. Why am I having a hard time retaining this information? I don’t normally think so highly of myself (it’s a work in progress) but one thing I’ve never thought of myself is that I’m not smarticle. How am I not retaining this information? Why am I not able to build my own projects? Or at least being able to build portions by myself from coding concepts that I’m tweaking to get my desired result and in turn not job ready by this point?

Well, it had a lot to do with what was going on with my home life. The other one is I was never taught how to learn. 

Definitely check out [Learning How to Learn with Barbara Oakley](https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn?utm_source=gg&utm_medium=sem&utm_campaign=01-BrandedSearch-US&utm_content=B2C&campaignid=380484307&adgroupid=67687134864&device=c&keyword=coursera%20learning%20how%20to%20learn&matchtype=b&network=g&devicemodel=&adpostion=&creativeid=343697761842&hide_mobile_promo&gclid=CjwKCAiAmuKbBhA2EiwAxQnt72MNBA-l2DYURRYPMXAiWPW7RmaPm-XQOXa1wafdIHkJw7fC1LSeqxoCVvsQAvD_BwE) on Coursera. It will change your life. 

I am a single parent, I work a full time job and I just so happen to have a poor sense of boundaries. Mostly because I’ve never been taught how to form healthy ones. I didn’t really know what boundaries really were until a few months ago.

Not to get too much into my personal life but I so happen to be involved with someone who didn’t have a sense of other peoples' boundaries either and I was taking on a bulk of responsibilities that maybe people that have partners shouldn’t be taking. Those responsibilities cut into my study time because they were draining me. I didn’t have the energy to sit down and 100% focus on learning to code. I said things, I wasn’t speaking the correct language apparently because it just so happened when I started back in therapy (shout out to my therapist, she is amazing) and she started helping me learn how to enforce and set them, that person begrudgingly left my personal space. 

Interesting how when you become assertive, set boundaries to benefit yourself others get mad. I have Marie Kondo'd my life and held metaphorical things and really thought about how they made me feel and where they stood with where I wanted to be and I let them goooooo. 

<img width="100%" style="width:100%" src="https://media.giphy.com/media/igR5863TALcSk/giphy.gif">

Big sigh. So, I am once again starting over on my coding journey. I am following the [#100Devs ](https://leonnoel.com/100devs/)program. Community college as an adult learner online is hard and it isn’t teaching me job ready skills. I have time cut out to learn, I’m learning how to network and find community. I’m also a member of Virtual Coffee and they have amazing people and even when I have no idea what’s going on, being around like-minded people is refreshing and helps me get a little closer to my goals. I’m applying what the #100Devs program says and I'm optimistic about finally being able to say I am a full stack developer and I work at ‘insert company name here’ and it actually be true. 

For now I am scheduling my days, weeks and months. I’m effectively juggling work, parenting, studies and it’s an empowering thing to be able to identify what I need to do to achieve what I want in my life.