I Should Have Done This Years Ago

Sometimes the solutions are right in front of your face and you don’t see them.

Photo by sydney Rae on Unsplash

Is there anything you know you should be doing, but you resist? Have you ever succeeded in overcoming this mental block? In today’s post, I will explore my own block that I now realize I should have overcome years ago, and maybe that will inspire you, too.

Let’s dive in.

Am I a Software Engineer or a Fraud?

Photo by bruce mars on Unsplash

Over the last seven years, I dealt with impostor syndrome about my abilities as a software developer.

I worked so hard to get my degree in Computer Science, even transferring to multiple schools to finish my studies. But does it matter? Does any of it matter in 2024?

I don’t rightly know anymore. I just know that I wrote code. And I wrote many lines over the years. I learned something new every day when I was given tasks to complete. And people in sensitive positions worldwide use my code in their work.

But you don’t see it. You may occasionally receive an email from a client thanking you for your work.

If I were creating a video game with analytics to show how many people were playing, I would surely know my work is felt and seen.

This was my outlook on myself for a very long time. If people couldn’t see your work, you might be a fraud, I believed.

But it was only part of the equation.

I Resented Having Only One Source of Income

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In 2019, I had a lot of debt. I knew I couldn’t work for other people as a freelance because my contract prohibited it.

Because of my low self-esteem, I also didn’t want to create content about coding. I opted to lean into my more nerdy side and generate content about TV shows, Movies, and Video Games.

I still love these topics and can nerd out with the best of them. However, creating content in those niches did not consistently earn me enough money to call it a second income stream.

Next month, I will get paid from YouTube for the last 3-4 months, an amount in NIS equivalent to 130 dollars. That’s not an amount I can survive on.

That channel has received over 2 million views since it was established in 2020 and monetized in early 2022.

So, I was determined to try to make something else work. Subconsciously, my programming knowledge was reserved only for my day job.

That made me try to do everything besides create content about coding. Coding is the one topic I could genuinely speak with authority and authenticity about because I live it. I’m doing it every day.

I will be the first to admit that it was a dumb decision in retrospect.

The common trap of trying to be the expert got me; I shouldn’t have fallen for that. If I were to document my journey and share what I learned from a learner's perspective and not an expert, things would have looked different. After seven years of doing it, I would have hundreds of videos and blog posts about software development.

I’m Creating Content About Coding Now

It’s almost the holiday season in the holy land, and I’m beginning to think about the new Jewish year and my hopes and dreams for these next twelve months, just like most of the world is doing during the period between Christmas and New Year’s.

Our New Year holiday is in two weeks. Rosh Hashana, we call it.

I’ve been thinking about the challenges I’m facing and how to overcome them. I’m feeling torn in so many directions, and it feels like I’m not accomplishing anything at all.

Have you ever felt that? Like you had too much on your plate all the time?

I used to think it’s the life of a content creator, but it’s not. It’s the life of a person without a focus. Focusing on one thing would have made all of this so much easier.

But I’ve been splitting my focus in many different directions, hoping to see progress in all of them.

There comes a time when a person juggling too many plates in the air needs to let some of them fall to the ground to focus on that one plate with actual food.

Focusing on coding content could be a successful approach. I’ve seen developers with over 100k subscribers on YouTube. They talk about the things I know and learned, too. I’ve seen the comments they get. Some good, some bad. Just like any YouTuber’s comment section.

And I’ve also seen the courses they offer in their video descriptions. Where they actually make money even if they aren’t monetized on YouTube. Courses they make with their community.

The first video I made earned me 19 subscribers and was about introducing my coding channel.

The second video I made takes longer to get recognized as it is a coding tutorial.

But I will continue with it. I will see where that leads and how to build a community. And I’ll share the process here over the next few weeks.

Thank you for reading!

I appreciate you being here. You can support my journey by becoming a paid member (or subscribing if you aren’t). I don’t have paywalled content yet, and I don’t know what I would put behind a paywall, so if you have any ideas, I’m open to hearing them!

Regardless, I would love to hear your thoughts about the idea I shared today. Feel free to comment below or reply to this email directly.