My first 100 days of code

On March 15 2022, with a pocket full of sunshine, a head full of dreams and a Udemy account containing a heavily discounted web dev course, I took my first intentional steps towards learning to code. I say intentional because I have learned a little bit of coding in the past, it’s something I have been drawn to for fun over the years but this is the first time I actually set out to see how far I could take it if I really put the effort in.

I had been doing some soul searching and some self improvement “stuff” and decided that I wanted to approach this process with an “Atomic Habits” mindset. Atomic Habits is a popular book by James Clear that talks about how to build good habits and break bad ones. One of the things I took away from it is that if you do something consistently it can really pay off. That 1% better every day, compounding interest mindset. I figured something like coding is hard and could take a long time. It’s pretty intimidating and there’s a LOT to learn but if I could just do something, anything, towards learning to code every day then in theory I would get somewhere. Certainly I would get further than if I kept following my current ‘strategy’ which was to take no action and think wistfully about what would happen if I did. That heavily discounted Udemy course had been gathering metaphorical dust for nearly 3 months.

Today, June 23 2022 marks 100 days since I wrote my first "Hello World" h1 and I am actually proud to say I have done ‘a something’ every single one of those 100 days. Triple digits, baby! I didn’t know about #100daysofcode when I started so 100 days wasn’t necessarily a goal but it’s a nice, round number and sounds kind of big so I’m choosing day 100 to take a moment to reflect. I’m sure many people could learn a whole bunch more than I have in 100 days but really, when I started I wanted to find out if coding could be a serious thing for me. It was something I was interested in but just kept looking into, skirting around, reading about, thinking over. I decided to take action and to continue to take action every day. I bit the bullet.

The first thing that happened was I started wanting to get out of bed in the morning. I planned to get my coding in before work. I had been working from home due to gestures broadly at the world and am definitely not a morning person. Motivation to be “up and at ‘em” was at an all time low but from day 1, I was setting an earlier alarm and actually getting up when it rang (ok maybe 1 snooze but still a major improvement). About a month in I started having dreams about coding. At around the 7 week mark I had the realisation that I had gone from a “see how it goes” mindset to an “I am a coder” mindset. I was hooked.

I was working through the Udemy course and supplementing it with CodeCademy lessons. I was listening to podcasts, reading blogs and trawling twitter. I had virtual coffee chats with people I didn’t know! I zoomed in to industry info sessions and completed a learn to code taster course. I started a coding twitter account and now I am writing my first blog post.

I genuinely feel that this process of coding every day for 100 days has changed the trajectory of my life. Sure, I could maybe have started sooner but equally I could have never taken that first step at all.

So. What have I learned in 100 days?

• Some html, some css and some javascript.

• When you don’t feel like coding but you’re up to day 71 the urge not to break the streak overpowers all.

• Some days you will feel like a wizard and some days you will feel like a jellyfish and that’s ok.

• If someone says html is a programming language in a twitter post there will be a pile on.

• Consistency works.

• If you are interested in something you can just try it and see how it goes.

• A lot can change in 100 days.

Here’s to the next 100!

As a post script, I really want to just take a sec to recognise Kate Richardson. I took her course called “Find Your Next” and she guided me through how to identify new possibilities for my future and how to start experimenting with them. What I learned from her is what I needed to know to start this in the first place. Thank you doesn’t feel like enough but it will have to do. Thanks Kate!