I started late, struggled with JS, and spent way too long shrinking into self doubt
3 years ago I didn't know what a component was. Didn't know what mount/unmount meant. Big O Notation was just letters and symbols that meant nothing to me.
This year marks 3 years of coding for me. And honestly? It hasn't always felt like progress.
The comparison trap
HTML and CSS came naturally, I picked them up fast and felt good about it. Then JavaScript hit and everything slowed down. It's still the thing I wrestle with most to this day.
What made it worse was social media. I'd open Instagram or TikTok and see developers my age shipping insane projects, explaining complex systems like it was nothing, and I'd just... shrink. That's the only word for it. I'd shrink into this shell of self doubt and start asking myself the same questions on repeat:
What can I build that hasn't already been built?
What separates me from every other developer?
Out of 100 devs, why would anyone pick me?
It wasn't hate. It was a healthy jealousy if that makes sense, I wanted to be where they were, I just couldn't see how to get there from where I was standing.
The shift
I can't point to one moment where everything changed. It was gradual.
I started learning React properly mid last year. This year I picked up DSA, SQL, and Express, because I got convinced pretty quickly that frontend alone doesn't sell, and honestly I wasn't comfortable staying in that lane anyway.
Built a few practice projects, freelanced a little here and there, nothing groundbreaking... well asides the current project I'm working on, the general idea is... well I believe it'll be groundbreaking but currently the current product is all over the place but it's real work. The job market hasn't been the kindest but I'm still pushing. I'm still young, I have time, and I'm not saying that to slack off, I'm saying it because panicking about where I'm not yet has never once helped me get there faster.
What I actually think now
I stopped looking at it as a competition. I started having fun with it. And the moment I did that, the projects started coming, the progress started showing, and the self doubt got quieter.
You're not behind. You're just on your own timeline. And your progress is only measured by how far you can see yourself going, not by what someone else is shipping online. Low-key I'm saying this to convince myself too but nevertheless
If you're in the same headspace I was in, keep building. Even the small stuff counts. It all compounds.
P.S: I still have trouble navigating github sometimes, Thank God for git-repo extensions on VScode lol
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