DRAFT I can only speak for myself, but as a beginner coder, the sheer depth, breadth and volume of tech-talk on the internet (while of course being inspiring) is also incredibly intimidating - and I’m sure most other beginners would find it so.

A quick google of ‘best coding blogs’ brings up pages of searches:

the top 10 bloggers you HAVE TO follow etc etc

Following all of these would be a full time job, and who has time for more than one of those? Add to that the incredible educational material available everywhere, the knowledge of experienced programmers writing beautiful and inexplicable code, and all those people on Codewars who write one line solutions where it took me 100, and its easy to start thinking yourself into a hole. 1) I’ll NEVER know all this 2) I don’t even know which bits of this I need to know and finally 3) ARGH I’M NEVER GOING TO GET A JOB

etc etc So what have I learnt so far to get me out of this spiral?

focus on enjoyment know that practice makes incomprehensible concepts clear ask your mentor :) write about your learning processes remember programming in the workplace tends to be a team sport - studying on your own is different celebrate those four hour attempts to fix a small problem when they finally work (or even if they don’t you’ve learnt a lot about what doesn’t work) read some blogs of people in the same boat as you read some blogs of people who’s boat you’d like to be sailing one day remember the aim isn’t to be CIO of google, its to find a job you enjoy

DON’T PANIC - go for a walk, play the guitar for a bit, watch some kittens on youtube, deadhead some petunias…whatever it takes. Come back with a fresh perspective.