After falling behind on Monday, I had a big recovery over Tuesday and today. Though exhausted, I feel pretty good.
There were two critical errors I was making in my code which was holding me back, but there was one more important error that I was making with my brain.
I like to think that I’m the type of person who isn’t easily rattled. People comment that I seem calm, even when things around me are chaotic. I’ve wrapped a bit of my ego up in this identity. Now, I’m not sure that it is entirely true.
Take these exercises I’ve been working on, for instance. After you think you have an answer to a coding problem on the homework, you press a test button. A thin (and secretly vicious) bar at the top of the screen thinks for a moment as the test runs. It turns green if you are correct and a murderous, vile red if you are not. All of last week, and especially on Monday, I would push the “run test” button and hold my breath. If it came back red, I yelled “Why!” and then did a lot swearing.
I came to realize that allowing myself to get this frustrated was not good for my logical thinking. Every time I flipped out, I became more prone to make mistakes. Over the course of five or six hours, I became so frustrated that my eyes hurt and I couldn’t remember anything I’d learned.
Today I forced myself to pause before pushing the test and say “No matter what, it will be ok. You’re not an idiot if this turns red, you just need to figure out what went wrong, make a note of it, and learn.”
I did pretty well on the exercises, getting ten out of twelve without much problem. But, more importantly, when I did run into trouble, I didn’t let myself get frustrated and I didn’t make mistakes just because I wasn’t thinking clearly.
From Retail to Programming 