I almost failed out of a coding bootcamp — this is how I bounced back.

Failing. It’s 100% inevitable, and it’s absolutely okay.

Forget about what you know and how you feel about failing. When it comes to learning how to code, it’s what you want to do. Failures slowly build you up to success.

Think of it this way: you’re a total n00b and coding has pwned you hard. It’s cool because you can respawn and try again, except you don’t lose your god tier loot or 50 pounds of salted meat with each coding death. You gain something. You just scored yourself a +1 intelligence buff and better insight on what you need to do to get this thing to work.

It hasn’t been easy for me to accept this. My current gig has a very different opinion of failing. I’m a registered nurse working in a neurology ICU and failing is a big, bad deal. Failing to do something properly could result in hurting or killing someone, losing your license, going to court, and possibly facing jail time.

We’re all taught that failing should never happen, and if it does, it’s a permanent stain on your work or academic record. It’ll follow you and probably bite you in the ass come time to apply to college or another job.

I had to learn how to go against everything I’ve been trained about failing. A complete 180, it had to be regarded as the best way to learn how things work together.

Really sucking and feeling stagnant in my progress at a bootcamp became motivation to finally change the way I look at programming. How I was accustomed to studying was not working. I took copious notes and consistently reviewed them — the way I was conditioned to learn for over 15 years of traditional education. While notes were great for me to understand the fundamental components of new concepts, it gave me a false sense of competence. I could look at a black lego and say “this is a black lego”, but I couldn’t build you a model of the Death Star with it.