October 30, 2025 • 30 mins
Are you struggling with motivation on your learning to code journey? It could be poor goal setting. It could be that trying to find a job is suppressing your curiosity and excitement for coding. It could very well be that software engineering isn't what you initially thought it was. But almost certainly, what I share in this has or is hurting your motivation more than you think.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Don Hansen (00:00):
Yo.
So are you feeling unmotivatedwhen learning to code?
Um, I created a video a whileback.
It was kind of uh pick yourselfup by your bootstraps and do
what you need to do regardlessof how you feel, which is true.
This is very true, and thereneeds to be grit in your
(00:22):
learning to code journey.
But for this video, I'm gonnadig a little bit deeper.
And I am someone that hasalways had like a fire under my
butt when I'm really interestedin something.
And my feelings don't get inthe way when I truly want
something.
I don't let them.
And it's easier, right?
(00:44):
So I talk about, you know,having a vision.
Um, you know, what kind ofdeveloper do you want to be?
What kind of problems in techdo you want to solve?
Where do you want to be in twoto three years?
Like, where do you want to bein five years?
Like, visualize that and likereally feel that.
And that can help pull you kindof in the direction you want to
go, but it also solidifies whatyou actually want to do, which
(01:06):
also helps you figure out how toget there, right?
Because there are a lot ofdifferent paths as a developer.
Um, there are a lot, andeveryone wants a templated path.
It generally doesn't work outwhen you seek out a templated
quick path.
So vision helps, but also umdopamine is a big factor as
(01:30):
well.
I built up a lot of bad habitsduring the lockdowns, and it
took a while to kind of get pastthat.
I felt like I really wasn'tmyself for years, it was just a
really weird time.
I think most of you canempathize with that, um, but I
(01:52):
built up bad habits.
I ate crappy food, um, I stayedin way more often, um, and I
drank alcohol more often, and Ideveloped a lot of other stuff
or a lot of other habits, and Iscrewed up my focus and I
screwed up my motivation.
There's so much that I didwhere I've felt like I've had to
(02:17):
climb out of that hole over thepast couple of years, and I've
done a pretty damn good job ofit.
I am not even close to where Iused to be in terms of just how
grounded and motivated I was,but I am doing pretty good,
right?
And I have just done so muchresearch into things like
(02:38):
dopamine detoxes and improvingyour attention span and
short-term and long-term memory,and I've looked into different
supplements and I it really I'vekind of circled back to just
really what I'm doing naturallythat is either screwing me up or
improving me.
(02:58):
And I've really honed in onthis, and so I wrote some stuff
down, but your lack ofmotivation to learn to code, um,
there'd be different factors,but I know developers, I know
how bad our caffeine habits canbe, I know how bad our food
habits can be.
And so much of what you do withthose bad habits greatly
(03:21):
influences your learning to codejourney, your motivation, and
the likelihood that you're goingto hit that finish line and
break into the industry is justlike putting a giant boulder and
then another one and thenanother one and walking uphill.
This journey can feel like thatat times.
And I'm saying that you couldfeel incredibly light by just
(03:45):
focusing on your bad habits.
So I talk about habits a lot,I'm gonna go into specifics.
So um short-term content feeds.
Get rid of TikTok.
Stop with YouTube Shorts.
Watch mine.
But don't watch anyone else's.
You can watch mine, don't watchanyone else's, okay?
(04:06):
Um, but even if you feel likeit's informative, even if you
feel like it's educational, theshorts that perform well are
usually the ones that will hurtyour attention long term.
But compulsive things like likeone thing I do is like I'll
check my email a lot.
I don't get a lot of emailsthroughout the entire day, but I
(04:30):
check my email a lot.
Why?
It's a distraction, it'scontext switching.
I I will literally be in themiddle of a test and be like, I
should check my email.
And it's almost become a habitat this point that doesn't need
to be there.
And I feel like there's justit's easy to build these loops
in your day, and they're usuallylike you don't realize it, but
(04:54):
you're kind of creating triggersthat'll then make it more
likely for you to check youremail or pick up your phone,
check your messages, and justget distracted.
Um, so again, like really tryto be careful about the content
that you assume, especially whenit comes to short-term content.
But also, like put your phoneaside, any distractions, try to
(05:15):
eliminate them.
I I'm speaking genericallybecause I don't know what
distractions you face, but a lotof us go into these loops that
start from a trigger.
Try to figure out what thosetriggers are.
Like, what did you do rightbefore you looked at this,
right?
Um and even long-form content.
Uh, I I've meant toward a lotof developers who keep sharing
(05:36):
with me how dedicated they areto trying to grow as a developer
because they are justmultitasking all day long, even
when they have a break, evenwhen they're doing laundry or
driving home or anything likethat.
They have headphones andthey're listening to developer
podcasts and they haveflashcards with them and they're
trying to recite things asthey're trying to do something
(05:58):
else.
Multitasking is just a it'ssuch a horrible, horrible habit
that has been pushed incorporate life to basically not
give a shit about your long-termfocus and just try to squeeze
any bit of productivity out ofyou in the short term.
It's not a long-term solution.
(06:19):
It never has been.
You can't focus on all of thesethings at once.
What you're doing is you'retask switching, you're going
back and forth, back and forth,back and forth very, very
quickly when you'remultitasking.
Um, that really destroys yourfocus, your ability to sit down
and just focus on one singlething.
(06:39):
I was a lifeguard a long timeago, and then I hired some
lifeguards, and I was aroundlifeguards.
I like I was around the waterfor a very long time, and there
were lifeguards that could watchthe water, and there were
lifeguards that couldn't, or youwouldn't want to them, you
(07:04):
wouldn't trust them to watchyour kids, right?
Um, first of all, you should bepaying attention to your kids
anyways, but parents don't dothat.
That's another story.
Uh, but there were lifeguardsthat would like fall asleep in
their seats that wouldn't justlike what you have to do, like
sometimes you'll have um yougotta have the entire area
scammed within 10 seconds.
Um, for different places, theymight extend it to like 20
(07:26):
seconds, but that entire pool,every spot of it, scam within 20
seconds.
You should know everythingthat's happening.
Um, but there were lifeguardsthat just could not keep up with
that at all.
It's you want to know why?
Because it's really boring.
Um, it's really, really boringto just watch water, especially
when you have like one or twopeople in the pool.
(07:48):
I feel like that's the timewhere it's so easy to let stuff
slip and people go under, andpeople think drowning is always
noisy.
No, drowning is very quietsometimes, and you sometimes you
just don't even know what'shappening.
It's hard to watch water forhours.
And you'll still get breaks,but my point is that a lot of
(08:13):
the lifeguards that were able tojust focus on a very boring
thing for a very long timegenerally did very well in their
studies, right?
Because when I was a lifeguard,I was younger, a lot of college
people, and they when theycould focus, that focus carries
over into many other parts oftheir life.
(08:33):
And when they would focus onthat water, it actually trained
them to be able to focus onsomething very boring for a very
long time, which makes, youknow, applying it to stuff that
you actually do get excitedabout, that you know, it's
trying to better your career,it's trying to study, it's it's
trying to study for a test, it'strying to train for something.
(08:54):
Um, you can that that focus ofjust like watching the water and
having that focus improved, itstarts carrying over into many
other productive parts in yourlife.
And it it can have thiscompounding effect.
It's very powerful.
And the lifeguards thatcouldn't pay attention were the
ones that were just kind of likeparting all the time, drinking
(09:16):
on the weekends.
Um, they didn't really do wellin school.
Now, I can't prove that this uhI can um I can assume a
correlation, I can't prove acausation.
I don't have that kind of data.
This is just something I'venoticed.
But when you can focus onsomething really boring for a
long time, you generally aregonna do very well with your
(09:39):
goals in life as long as you setthe goals that you need to be
setting.
By the way, if you are divingdeep into Node and you've
already built a few things withExpress, it might be time to
challenge yourself with a morescalable framework, NestJS.
It's one of the most popularframeworks for Node, and I
personally use it to build myprojects.
It's one of the reasons why Idecided to build a course for
(10:00):
it, to get people up to speedwith the basics.
You can find that course atScrimba.com.
Oh, it's also free.
If you use my link in thedescription to sign up for
Scrimba, and you decide toupgrade to the pro plan, which
unlocks a ton of differentcourses, you actually get a
discount.
Again, I partner with thembecause they are actually really
good at building up juniordevelopers.
(10:21):
Check it out.
What do you have to lose?
Now let's get back to thevideo.
Here's a task.
Here's something I want you totry.
This is gonna be verydifficult.
You're gonna laugh at me.
But what I want you to do, justcompletely alone.
I want you to pull up a stoolor you can sit on the ground,
(10:43):
and I want you to face the wall.
I want you to set a timer, butyou are not allowed to look at
that timer.
I actually think that's gonnamake it easier for you.
But you set a timer for onehour.
Put it aside, I dare you to tryto stare at that wall for one
hour.
You are not allowed to lookaway.
(11:04):
If you look away, you can takea break, but you gotta restart
that from the beginning.
One hour.
You have no idea how difficultof a task that actually is.
And if you try this, you'regonna see how much our attention
has been completely, completelydestroyed.
(11:24):
Try it.
It'll actually start improvingyour focus just a tiny bit.
But try it.
And I think it's gonna scareyou.
There's no reason you can't.
There's no reason anyone can'tjust stare at a wall for an
hour.
But most people can't.
I don't believe they can.
So that's kind of just a test.
(11:46):
But outside of focus, we havelike a lot of man, our dopamine
is really screwed up from a lotof things that are have gone
into probably trillions ofdollars.
Like when it when it comes toour attention and marketing,
there's trillions of dollars.
(12:07):
Uh I'm just throwing out arandom number.
There's there's a lot of moneythat goes into figuring out how
to manipulate your attention andhow to keep you motivated and
directed at things that willmake other people money.
Right?
So, gambling is a big one.
Gambling is a huge one that canreally destroy your dopamine.
(12:28):
Please try to limit that.
Porn.
Porn is a big one.
Um we never should havenormalized porn as much as we
did.
Like it is destroying so manyparts of our society in general,
especially when it comes torelationships and procreating,
which we are meant to do, whichis scary how little that is
(12:49):
happening nowadays.
But porn is very addictive.
A lot of people have pornaddictions and they don't even
know it.
Mostly men, but sometimeswomen.
But men, if you're especiallyif you're a man, you need to
check your porn addiction.
It is screwing up besides justthe relationship stuff, it is
(13:11):
definitely screwing with yourdopamine.
Um, junk foods, um,ultra-processed stuff, very
sweet, very salty stuff.
A lot of people will attach itto helping them get over
emotional stuff too.
Um it really screws up yourenergy levels throughout the
(13:34):
day.
You can have pretty bigcrashes, and a lot of that
motivation can just be aboutlike what you're putting into
your body, right?
Ultra processed stuff, ultrasweet, ultra soft, uh salty
stuff that kind of just makesyou feel good in that moment,
that makes you feel worse lateron because you're feeling more
of that crash.
And the food itself, like it'sdoing different things to you.
(13:55):
Uh, but a lot of the junk food,a lot of like the bad uh
carbohydrates will causecrashes.
It'll cause huge dips inenergy, way more than you
realize.
Like when I started eatingmostly meat, and I'll mix in, I
think what would I my diet'sprobably closest to like a paleo
diet, but I'll eat meat, fish,vegetables, and fruit, right?
(14:19):
And I pretty much tossed outmost carbs at this point.
So I've increased, um, likewhen you kind of had this diet,
I want to increase healthy fats,but I'm really getting rid of a
lot of carbs and sugars.
And I found that I have moreenergy that is to steady
throughout the day.
And when I go back to eatingcrappy carbs, it's so noticeable
(14:45):
how screwed up my energy gets.
And I love coding, and I feellike it can really just destroy
my motivation with coding withjust a bad diet alone.
I'm going over more stuff.
I'm not done, but just a baddiet alone can screw up my
motivation to do something Ienjoy.
(15:06):
Uh man, this is gonna be a hardone.
You need to cut back yourcaffeine.
You really need to cut backyour caffeine.
I am not saying go cold turkey,but is it it's so easy to get
dependent on caffeine just tofeel like you have enough
(15:28):
energy.
Because eventually, right, youyou start getting used to it and
you're gonna increase yourlevels, and then you just need
enough to feel okay.
It's just a trap.
And so many developers snowballinto a really shitty habit of
this.
You shouldn't have to cycle offof it.
You should like, and cyclingoff of it, if you have a high
(15:49):
caffeine intake and you'vegotten used to that, you've
built up a tolerance.
Cycling off sucks ass.
I don't know if you've had todo that.
I've had high caffeineconsumption of the past, but
man, you better expect to notget anything done when cycling
off for like a month.
And I say like a month.
Some people only like cycle offa week and they'll just
(16:09):
diminish it just a little bit.
Man, a lot of developers have areally bad caffeine habit.
And what gives you temporarymotivation, because it does give
you motivation, will hurt youin the long run.
I promise you.
I have been at many differentlevels of caffeine.
One of the best things that Idid for myself is cycling off of
(16:30):
it.
I take 50 milligrams ofcaffeine for workouts, and I'm
even trying to cycle off ofthat, but that that's high for
me right now.
And I feel like my energythroughout the day is steadier.
Alcohol was a big one duringthe lockdowns and stuff.
I started making an excuse tolike drink and play video games
with friends, and I wouldn'thang out a lot.
And then that habit just likestuck with me, right?
(16:53):
And then when I would hang outwith more people as the years
went on, and um I would drinkwith them.
And alcohol is for me, likeeveryone's a different drinker.
For me, I do it to give me likea burst of energy and
motivation.
It always gave me that.
I'm burned out from the week.
Give me some motivation, giveme some energy.
Let's kind of release thatstress.
(17:13):
Um, and I'm a happy drunk, butwhat really sucked about it
wasn't even the day after.
It was like five days after.
When I really paid attention toit and I really started weaning
myself off, it would take fivedays, even with like six beers
in me over the course of likefive hours, maybe six, I would
(17:38):
feel that for five days later.
Like if I really paid attentionto my motivation, I look back
at what I accomplished that day.
It took me five days for it tostart my motivation to be
restored to what it was.
So you just like let's just sayyou drink once a week, even
just a little bit, you then umhave to go back to work or you
(18:01):
are want to work on yourprojects, anything like that.
You expect yourself to takefive days to start getting as
productive.
Um, you might be doing stuff,but to have that motivation and
have that focus and that driveto where you were before you
started drinking, pay attentionto that.
Alcohol is one of those thingswhere it like it affects you
(18:21):
longer than you think.
And it like, even my mood andeverything, like I feel I
realize I don't even need todrink that much to then have my
mood affected, right?
And mood can take a little bitlonger to get restored.
Now, I'm not saying that I justhad zero motivation two days
later and I was just angry ordepressed or sad or anything
(18:45):
like that.
But I was like 60%, 70% of theway there.
And that affects what I'mcapable of.
Like that affects what I getdone for the week.
And even if I'm like 80%, 85%of the way, why the fuck would I
want to be like that more thanhalf the week for drinking a
(19:08):
little bit on the weekends?
That to me is just stupid.
Alcohol is like one of thebiggest factors of me being
unproductive.
And I just didn't understandit.
I didn't understand how itaffected me.
And I think alcohol is likejust one of those drugs that's
like very normalized andglamorized and marketed to us.
Um, a lot of people use it as asocial lubricant.
(19:31):
Like, I'm not gonna lectureyou.
Of course, that's bad.
You should get comfortable inuncomfortable situations, and
eventually you will feelcomfortable in social
situations, right?
But man, I think it affectspeople more than you think.
And weed and nicotine.
Um, those are two big ones.
These things like really screwwith your motivation.
(19:53):
You when you become dependenton it, these things create a
like your body builds up atolerance for these things, and
you need more and more and morejust to feel normal.
And I think more people need tocall themselves out on this.
It's normalized too much.
It's weird.
Like if you are someone that'sambitious, you actually want to
achieve things in life, but youdon't feel motivated to achieve
(20:15):
them, there's probably like adissonance, there's a conflict
with yourself because you knowyou're capable of more, but you
just don't feel like you havethe energy for it.
Start with drugs.
These that these are drugs.
Start with the drugs that youare ingesting and try to wean
off.
I think that's a big one.
(20:38):
A lot of you a lot of peoplewill argue against this.
In moderation, inmoderation isokay.
Kind of, but like it depends onhow ambitious you are.
Like, if you actually want tobe very successful in life,
moderation for these drugs, youneed to challenge yourself on
(21:00):
that.
And then just sleep.
Not enough people are gettingsleep.
I need eight and a half hours.
I need to hit that pillow andgive myself eight and a half
hours.
I usually take up to a half anhour to fall asleep.
Um, so I get about eight.
I probably could use about likea full eight and a half, but
you need to know this aboutyourself.
A lot of us aren't gettingenough sleep.
(21:21):
You know this.
Man, if you just improved halfof this so far, your motivation
to learn to code would go up.
It really would.
But you need to like workingout is going to be incredibly
helpful, just with your mood ingeneral, just with the
perspective that you form overwhat you need to get done.
(21:44):
It just improves over time,especially with like um high
intensity interval training toget that heart rate up.
Man, it's such it's such afantastic thing for mood.
Like if you're feeling down, ifyou're kind of feeling like you
have the blues and we're goinginto winter, less sunlight, most
people don't get enough vitaminD.
(22:04):
And man, the working out duringwinter is such a mood lifter.
It's so fantastic for aspiringdevelopers that are kind of
getting burned out.
And, you know, a lot ofaspiring developers kind of they
they like coding, but theydon't really like the job
search.
And you pair these, and a lotof people just start kind of
(22:26):
panicking, uh, creating anxietyaround it, and they don't really
learn to love coding and enjoyit.
Um if you really want toimprove your mood around your
situation and you trying tobecome a developer, like
high-intensity intervaltraining, getting that heart
rate up, and lifting, heavylifting can do that too.
Um it's so helpful for mood.
(22:48):
Um I think the big thing that Iwant to address, and I I
touched on it, but you need tolearn to be bored.
You need to learn to do housechores without listening to a
podcast.
You need to learn to go on awalk without listening to a
(23:10):
podcast.
You need to learn to take theheadphones off, listen to
nature, listen to the sounds.
I there's just this vibrantaspect of life that is crushed
in our society that isoverconsuming.
(23:34):
When you do like a properdopamine detox, and you can look
at that and how to do that,there's just like when you walk
outside, the sun is brighter,the grass, the trees, they're
more vibrant.
You feel better, you feel lifeagain, finally, again.
(23:54):
And a lot of that getssuppressed.
A lot of the beauty in life,everything around us, being able
to appreciate what is aroundus, it just gets suppressed and
suppressed and suppressed withthis overconsumption.
Learning to code is more thanjust learning syntax, the
(24:21):
technical part of it.
It is also building up reallygood habits to replace a lot of
these really bad habits that arecompletely demolishing your
motivation and your focus to beable to actually do this.
You need to learn to be bored.
(24:44):
Participate in activities thatare boring, that feel boring.
Give it a week.
Give it a week.
And I'm not saying you have togive up all of this stuff at
once.
Wean yourself off of one or twothings over one week.
Pick one thing to wean yourselfoff over.
Next week you start weaningyourself off over the other
thing.
But you need to learn to bebored.
(25:04):
Pick up a book.
Read.
It's very easy to listen.
It's very easy to listen.
It's harder to read and keepyour attention.
If you're not used to reading,it's harder to read and keep
your attention focused on ablock of text that all looks
(25:26):
very similar with no pictures.
If you need a picture book,read a picture book.
Start with that, but thenescalate to words.
I like you you think I soundsilly, but I'm I'm very actually
very serious.
It's why I put the bookshelf.
It's it's a big thing that Iwant people to do is just take
(25:47):
time out of their day to just bebored and do things that are
boring because this is gonnasound really weird, but this is
what it's coming to.
People, the lifeguards that areable to stare at the water for
hours at a time would make gooddevelopers.
(26:11):
People who are willing to shutoff their podcast, shut off the
video consumption, pick up abook for an hour a day and just
read, read that book, they'regonna make good developers.
People who can be bored, that Ican trust that their focus,
(26:32):
that their motivation is goingto be way higher than people
that overconsume.
If I can train someone to learnto code, that's easy.
It takes time, but that's theeasy part.
To train them to be consistent,have good habits, have good
(26:54):
communication, so much more thatgoes into being a dev.
The technical part takes long,but that's the easy part.
You start improving, and here'sa beautiful thing: you start
improving your habits, you startreally focusing on your brain
chemistry that affects yourmotivation, that affects your
focus.
You start focusing on thatstuff, but all the learning
(27:18):
becomes easier.
The job search becomes moremanageable.
It doesn't feel overwhelming,it doesn't feel as stressful.
I I want to share one lastthing.
I developed chronic tinnitusseven years ago, something like
(27:39):
that.
I hear ringing in my ears 24-7.
If you ever get that, it issomething very hard to deal with
in the beginning, especially ifyou go on forms and people
talking about they're just theyfeel hopeless.
Let's just keep it simple forYouTube.
They feel very hopeless.
(28:00):
Getting tinnitus taught me howmalleable the brain is.
Like if I focus on it rightnow, I can hear ringing.
99.9% of the day, I don't hearit.
I focus on it, I hear it.
(28:20):
But my brain can adapt to thatstimulus because it doesn't
serve me.
The only time I hear it is likewhen I it's kind of interesting
because it's almost like ahealth monitor for me.
If I eat something in highsugar, high carbs, I start
noticing it more.
It gets louder, right?
So it's not its normal volume,it gets louder.
(28:42):
And I use that to be able topick out the foods that do well
for me.
I I use that to realize my bodydoesn't like caffeine from
certain sources.
It's interesting.
It's actually been incrediblyhelpful.
And my perspective on tinnitus,to see it as like a health
(29:03):
healthometer, it completelychanged how I interpreted the
stimulus.
I went from very hopeless tolike improving my health and
really focus on that more thanI've ever been.
It's just it's just weird,something that seems bad at
(29:25):
first, but my entire perspectivechanged.
And I think that's what a lotof people need to do with
learning to code and becoming adeveloper.
A lot of this stuff that feelsdifficult and boring and
straining and anxiety inducing.
If you figure out how to changeyour perspective and how you
(29:48):
see all of this, it becomes likea game.
You can really gamify a lot ofthis and you can feel
achievements and grateful for alot of things that you're going
through.
And you might not see.
that now but perspective iseverything and I think a lot of
the advice that I gave can helpimprove that perspective.
(30:09):
So what is my final tip?
Learn to stare at a wall.
Yo.
So are you feeling unmotivatedwhen learning to code?
Um, I created a video a whileback.
It was kind of uh pick yourselfup by your bootstraps and do
what you need to do regardlessof how you feel, which is true.
This is very true, and thereneeds to be grit in your
(00:22):
learning to code journey.
But for this video, I'm gonnadig a little bit deeper.
And I am someone that hasalways had like a fire under my
butt when I'm really interestedin something.
And my feelings don't get inthe way when I truly want
something.
I don't let them.
And it's easier, right?
(00:44):
So I talk about, you know,having a vision.
Um, you know, what kind ofdeveloper do you want to be?
What kind of problems in techdo you want to solve?
Where do you want to be in twoto three years?
Like, where do you want to bein five years?
Like, visualize that and likereally feel that.
And that can help pull you kindof in the direction you want to
go, but it also solidifies whatyou actually want to do, which
(01:06):
also helps you figure out how toget there, right?
Because there are a lot ofdifferent paths as a developer.
Um, there are a lot, andeveryone wants a templated path.
It generally doesn't work outwhen you seek out a templated
quick path.
So vision helps, but also umdopamine is a big factor as
(01:30):
well.
I built up a lot of bad habitsduring the lockdowns, and it
took a while to kind of get pastthat.
I felt like I really wasn'tmyself for years, it was just a
really weird time.
I think most of you canempathize with that, um, but I
(01:52):
built up bad habits.
I ate crappy food, um, I stayedin way more often, um, and I
drank alcohol more often, and Ideveloped a lot of other stuff
or a lot of other habits, and Iscrewed up my focus and I
screwed up my motivation.
There's so much that I didwhere I've felt like I've had to
(02:17):
climb out of that hole over thepast couple of years, and I've
done a pretty damn good job ofit.
I am not even close to where Iused to be in terms of just how
grounded and motivated I was,but I am doing pretty good,
right?
And I have just done so muchresearch into things like
(02:38):
dopamine detoxes and improvingyour attention span and
short-term and long-term memory,and I've looked into different
supplements and I it really I'vekind of circled back to just
really what I'm doing naturallythat is either screwing me up or
improving me.
(02:58):
And I've really honed in onthis, and so I wrote some stuff
down, but your lack ofmotivation to learn to code, um,
there'd be different factors,but I know developers, I know
how bad our caffeine habits canbe, I know how bad our food
habits can be.
And so much of what you do withthose bad habits greatly
(03:21):
influences your learning to codejourney, your motivation, and
the likelihood that you're goingto hit that finish line and
break into the industry is justlike putting a giant boulder and
then another one and thenanother one and walking uphill.
This journey can feel like thatat times.
And I'm saying that you couldfeel incredibly light by just
(03:45):
focusing on your bad habits.
So I talk about habits a lot,I'm gonna go into specifics.
So um short-term content feeds.
Get rid of TikTok.
Stop with YouTube Shorts.
Watch mine.
But don't watch anyone else's.
You can watch mine, don't watchanyone else's, okay?
(04:06):
Um, but even if you feel likeit's informative, even if you
feel like it's educational, theshorts that perform well are
usually the ones that will hurtyour attention long term.
But compulsive things like likeone thing I do is like I'll
check my email a lot.
I don't get a lot of emailsthroughout the entire day, but I
(04:30):
check my email a lot.
Why?
It's a distraction, it'scontext switching.
I I will literally be in themiddle of a test and be like, I
should check my email.
And it's almost become a habitat this point that doesn't need
to be there.
And I feel like there's justit's easy to build these loops
in your day, and they're usuallylike you don't realize it, but
(04:54):
you're kind of creating triggersthat'll then make it more
likely for you to check youremail or pick up your phone,
check your messages, and justget distracted.
Um, so again, like really tryto be careful about the content
that you assume, especially whenit comes to short-term content.
But also, like put your phoneaside, any distractions, try to
(05:15):
eliminate them.
I I'm speaking genericallybecause I don't know what
distractions you face, but a lotof us go into these loops that
start from a trigger.
Try to figure out what thosetriggers are.
Like, what did you do rightbefore you looked at this,
right?
Um and even long-form content.
Uh, I I've meant toward a lotof developers who keep sharing
(05:36):
with me how dedicated they areto trying to grow as a developer
because they are justmultitasking all day long, even
when they have a break, evenwhen they're doing laundry or
driving home or anything likethat.
They have headphones andthey're listening to developer
podcasts and they haveflashcards with them and they're
trying to recite things asthey're trying to do something
(05:58):
else.
Multitasking is just a it'ssuch a horrible, horrible habit
that has been pushed incorporate life to basically not
give a shit about your long-termfocus and just try to squeeze
any bit of productivity out ofyou in the short term.
It's not a long-term solution.
(06:19):
It never has been.
You can't focus on all of thesethings at once.
What you're doing is you'retask switching, you're going
back and forth, back and forth,back and forth very, very
quickly when you'remultitasking.
Um, that really destroys yourfocus, your ability to sit down
and just focus on one singlething.
(06:39):
I was a lifeguard a long timeago, and then I hired some
lifeguards, and I was aroundlifeguards.
I like I was around the waterfor a very long time, and there
were lifeguards that could watchthe water, and there were
lifeguards that couldn't, or youwouldn't want to them, you
(07:04):
wouldn't trust them to watchyour kids, right?
Um, first of all, you should bepaying attention to your kids
anyways, but parents don't dothat.
That's another story.
Uh, but there were lifeguardsthat would like fall asleep in
their seats that wouldn't justlike what you have to do, like
sometimes you'll have um yougotta have the entire area
scammed within 10 seconds.
Um, for different places, theymight extend it to like 20
(07:26):
seconds, but that entire pool,every spot of it, scam within 20
seconds.
You should know everythingthat's happening.
Um, but there were lifeguardsthat just could not keep up with
that at all.
It's you want to know why?
Because it's really boring.
Um, it's really, really boringto just watch water, especially
when you have like one or twopeople in the pool.
(07:48):
I feel like that's the timewhere it's so easy to let stuff
slip and people go under, andpeople think drowning is always
noisy.
No, drowning is very quietsometimes, and you sometimes you
just don't even know what'shappening.
It's hard to watch water forhours.
And you'll still get breaks,but my point is that a lot of
(08:13):
the lifeguards that were able tojust focus on a very boring
thing for a very long timegenerally did very well in their
studies, right?
Because when I was a lifeguard,I was younger, a lot of college
people, and they when theycould focus, that focus carries
over into many other parts oftheir life.
(08:33):
And when they would focus onthat water, it actually trained
them to be able to focus onsomething very boring for a very
long time, which makes, youknow, applying it to stuff that
you actually do get excitedabout, that you know, it's
trying to better your career,it's trying to study, it's it's
trying to study for a test, it'strying to train for something.
(08:54):
Um, you can that that focus ofjust like watching the water and
having that focus improved, itstarts carrying over into many
other productive parts in yourlife.
And it it can have thiscompounding effect.
It's very powerful.
And the lifeguards thatcouldn't pay attention were the
ones that were just kind of likeparting all the time, drinking
(09:16):
on the weekends.
Um, they didn't really do wellin school.
Now, I can't prove that this uhI can um I can assume a
correlation, I can't prove acausation.
I don't have that kind of data.
This is just something I'venoticed.
But when you can focus onsomething really boring for a
long time, you generally aregonna do very well with your
(09:39):
goals in life as long as you setthe goals that you need to be
setting.
By the way, if you are divingdeep into Node and you've
already built a few things withExpress, it might be time to
challenge yourself with a morescalable framework, NestJS.
It's one of the most popularframeworks for Node, and I
personally use it to build myprojects.
It's one of the reasons why Idecided to build a course for
(10:00):
it, to get people up to speedwith the basics.
You can find that course atScrimba.com.
Oh, it's also free.
If you use my link in thedescription to sign up for
Scrimba, and you decide toupgrade to the pro plan, which
unlocks a ton of differentcourses, you actually get a
discount.
Again, I partner with thembecause they are actually really
good at building up juniordevelopers.
(10:21):
Check it out.
What do you have to lose?
Now let's get back to thevideo.
Here's a task.
Here's something I want you totry.
This is gonna be verydifficult.
You're gonna laugh at me.
But what I want you to do, justcompletely alone.
I want you to pull up a stoolor you can sit on the ground,
(10:43):
and I want you to face the wall.
I want you to set a timer, butyou are not allowed to look at
that timer.
I actually think that's gonnamake it easier for you.
But you set a timer for onehour.
Put it aside, I dare you to tryto stare at that wall for one
hour.
You are not allowed to lookaway.
(11:04):
If you look away, you can takea break, but you gotta restart
that from the beginning.
One hour.
You have no idea how difficultof a task that actually is.
And if you try this, you'regonna see how much our attention
has been completely, completelydestroyed.
(11:24):
Try it.
It'll actually start improvingyour focus just a tiny bit.
But try it.
And I think it's gonna scareyou.
There's no reason you can't.
There's no reason anyone can'tjust stare at a wall for an
hour.
But most people can't.
I don't believe they can.
So that's kind of just a test.
(11:46):
But outside of focus, we havelike a lot of man, our dopamine
is really screwed up from a lotof things that are have gone
into probably trillions ofdollars.
Like when it when it comes toour attention and marketing,
there's trillions of dollars.
(12:07):
Uh I'm just throwing out arandom number.
There's there's a lot of moneythat goes into figuring out how
to manipulate your attention andhow to keep you motivated and
directed at things that willmake other people money.
Right?
So, gambling is a big one.
Gambling is a huge one that canreally destroy your dopamine.
(12:28):
Please try to limit that.
Porn.
Porn is a big one.
Um we never should havenormalized porn as much as we
did.
Like it is destroying so manyparts of our society in general,
especially when it comes torelationships and procreating,
which we are meant to do, whichis scary how little that is
(12:49):
happening nowadays.
But porn is very addictive.
A lot of people have pornaddictions and they don't even
know it.
Mostly men, but sometimeswomen.
But men, if you're especiallyif you're a man, you need to
check your porn addiction.
It is screwing up besides justthe relationship stuff, it is
(13:11):
definitely screwing with yourdopamine.
Um, junk foods, um,ultra-processed stuff, very
sweet, very salty stuff.
A lot of people will attach itto helping them get over
emotional stuff too.
Um it really screws up yourenergy levels throughout the
(13:34):
day.
You can have pretty bigcrashes, and a lot of that
motivation can just be aboutlike what you're putting into
your body, right?
Ultra processed stuff, ultrasweet, ultra soft, uh salty
stuff that kind of just makesyou feel good in that moment,
that makes you feel worse lateron because you're feeling more
of that crash.
And the food itself, like it'sdoing different things to you.
(13:55):
Uh, but a lot of the junk food,a lot of like the bad uh
carbohydrates will causecrashes.
It'll cause huge dips inenergy, way more than you
realize.
Like when I started eatingmostly meat, and I'll mix in, I
think what would I my diet'sprobably closest to like a paleo
diet, but I'll eat meat, fish,vegetables, and fruit, right?
(14:19):
And I pretty much tossed outmost carbs at this point.
So I've increased, um, likewhen you kind of had this diet,
I want to increase healthy fats,but I'm really getting rid of a
lot of carbs and sugars.
And I found that I have moreenergy that is to steady
throughout the day.
And when I go back to eatingcrappy carbs, it's so noticeable
(14:45):
how screwed up my energy gets.
And I love coding, and I feellike it can really just destroy
my motivation with coding withjust a bad diet alone.
I'm going over more stuff.
I'm not done, but just a baddiet alone can screw up my
motivation to do something Ienjoy.
(15:06):
Uh man, this is gonna be a hardone.
You need to cut back yourcaffeine.
You really need to cut backyour caffeine.
I am not saying go cold turkey,but is it it's so easy to get
dependent on caffeine just tofeel like you have enough
(15:28):
energy.
Because eventually, right, youyou start getting used to it and
you're gonna increase yourlevels, and then you just need
enough to feel okay.
It's just a trap.
And so many developers snowballinto a really shitty habit of
this.
You shouldn't have to cycle offof it.
You should like, and cyclingoff of it, if you have a high
(15:49):
caffeine intake and you'vegotten used to that, you've
built up a tolerance.
Cycling off sucks ass.
I don't know if you've had todo that.
I've had high caffeineconsumption of the past, but
man, you better expect to notget anything done when cycling
off for like a month.
And I say like a month.
Some people only like cycle offa week and they'll just
(16:09):
diminish it just a little bit.
Man, a lot of developers have areally bad caffeine habit.
And what gives you temporarymotivation, because it does give
you motivation, will hurt youin the long run.
I promise you.
I have been at many differentlevels of caffeine.
One of the best things that Idid for myself is cycling off of
(16:30):
it.
I take 50 milligrams ofcaffeine for workouts, and I'm
even trying to cycle off ofthat, but that that's high for
me right now.
And I feel like my energythroughout the day is steadier.
Alcohol was a big one duringthe lockdowns and stuff.
I started making an excuse tolike drink and play video games
with friends, and I wouldn'thang out a lot.
And then that habit just likestuck with me, right?
(16:53):
And then when I would hang outwith more people as the years
went on, and um I would drinkwith them.
And alcohol is for me, likeeveryone's a different drinker.
For me, I do it to give me likea burst of energy and
motivation.
It always gave me that.
I'm burned out from the week.
Give me some motivation, giveme some energy.
Let's kind of release thatstress.
(17:13):
Um, and I'm a happy drunk, butwhat really sucked about it
wasn't even the day after.
It was like five days after.
When I really paid attention toit and I really started weaning
myself off, it would take fivedays, even with like six beers
in me over the course of likefive hours, maybe six, I would
(17:38):
feel that for five days later.
Like if I really paid attentionto my motivation, I look back
at what I accomplished that day.
It took me five days for it tostart my motivation to be
restored to what it was.
So you just like let's just sayyou drink once a week, even
just a little bit, you then umhave to go back to work or you
(18:01):
are want to work on yourprojects, anything like that.
You expect yourself to takefive days to start getting as
productive.
Um, you might be doing stuff,but to have that motivation and
have that focus and that driveto where you were before you
started drinking, pay attentionto that.
Alcohol is one of those thingswhere it like it affects you
(18:21):
longer than you think.
And it like, even my mood andeverything, like I feel I
realize I don't even need todrink that much to then have my
mood affected, right?
And mood can take a little bitlonger to get restored.
Now, I'm not saying that I justhad zero motivation two days
later and I was just angry ordepressed or sad or anything
(18:45):
like that.
But I was like 60%, 70% of theway there.
And that affects what I'mcapable of.
Like that affects what I getdone for the week.
And even if I'm like 80%, 85%of the way, why the fuck would I
want to be like that more thanhalf the week for drinking a
(19:08):
little bit on the weekends?
That to me is just stupid.
Alcohol is like one of thebiggest factors of me being
unproductive.
And I just didn't understandit.
I didn't understand how itaffected me.
And I think alcohol is likejust one of those drugs that's
like very normalized andglamorized and marketed to us.
Um, a lot of people use it as asocial lubricant.
(19:31):
Like, I'm not gonna lectureyou.
Of course, that's bad.
You should get comfortable inuncomfortable situations, and
eventually you will feelcomfortable in social
situations, right?
But man, I think it affectspeople more than you think.
And weed and nicotine.
Um, those are two big ones.
These things like really screwwith your motivation.
(19:53):
You when you become dependenton it, these things create a
like your body builds up atolerance for these things, and
you need more and more and morejust to feel normal.
And I think more people need tocall themselves out on this.
It's normalized too much.
It's weird.
Like if you are someone that'sambitious, you actually want to
achieve things in life, but youdon't feel motivated to achieve
(20:15):
them, there's probably like adissonance, there's a conflict
with yourself because you knowyou're capable of more, but you
just don't feel like you havethe energy for it.
Start with drugs.
These that these are drugs.
Start with the drugs that youare ingesting and try to wean
off.
I think that's a big one.
(20:38):
A lot of you a lot of peoplewill argue against this.
In moderation, inmoderation isokay.
Kind of, but like it depends onhow ambitious you are.
Like, if you actually want tobe very successful in life,
moderation for these drugs, youneed to challenge yourself on
(21:00):
that.
And then just sleep.
Not enough people are gettingsleep.
I need eight and a half hours.
I need to hit that pillow andgive myself eight and a half
hours.
I usually take up to a half anhour to fall asleep.
Um, so I get about eight.
I probably could use about likea full eight and a half, but
you need to know this aboutyourself.
A lot of us aren't gettingenough sleep.
(21:21):
You know this.
Man, if you just improved halfof this so far, your motivation
to learn to code would go up.
It really would.
But you need to like workingout is going to be incredibly
helpful, just with your mood ingeneral, just with the
perspective that you form overwhat you need to get done.
(21:44):
It just improves over time,especially with like um high
intensity interval training toget that heart rate up.
Man, it's such it's such afantastic thing for mood.
Like if you're feeling down, ifyou're kind of feeling like you
have the blues and we're goinginto winter, less sunlight, most
people don't get enough vitaminD.
(22:04):
And man, the working out duringwinter is such a mood lifter.
It's so fantastic for aspiringdevelopers that are kind of
getting burned out.
And, you know, a lot ofaspiring developers kind of they
they like coding, but theydon't really like the job
search.
And you pair these, and a lotof people just start kind of
(22:26):
panicking, uh, creating anxietyaround it, and they don't really
learn to love coding and enjoyit.
Um if you really want toimprove your mood around your
situation and you trying tobecome a developer, like
high-intensity intervaltraining, getting that heart
rate up, and lifting, heavylifting can do that too.
Um it's so helpful for mood.
(22:48):
Um I think the big thing that Iwant to address, and I I
touched on it, but you need tolearn to be bored.
You need to learn to do housechores without listening to a
podcast.
You need to learn to go on awalk without listening to a
(23:10):
podcast.
You need to learn to take theheadphones off, listen to
nature, listen to the sounds.
I there's just this vibrantaspect of life that is crushed
in our society that isoverconsuming.
(23:34):
When you do like a properdopamine detox, and you can look
at that and how to do that,there's just like when you walk
outside, the sun is brighter,the grass, the trees, they're
more vibrant.
You feel better, you feel lifeagain, finally, again.
(23:54):
And a lot of that getssuppressed.
A lot of the beauty in life,everything around us, being able
to appreciate what is aroundus, it just gets suppressed and
suppressed and suppressed withthis overconsumption.
Learning to code is more thanjust learning syntax, the
(24:21):
technical part of it.
It is also building up reallygood habits to replace a lot of
these really bad habits that arecompletely demolishing your
motivation and your focus to beable to actually do this.
You need to learn to be bored.
(24:44):
Participate in activities thatare boring, that feel boring.
Give it a week.
Give it a week.
And I'm not saying you have togive up all of this stuff at
once.
Wean yourself off of one or twothings over one week.
Pick one thing to wean yourselfoff over.
Next week you start weaningyourself off over the other
thing.
But you need to learn to bebored.
(25:04):
Pick up a book.
Read.
It's very easy to listen.
It's very easy to listen.
It's harder to read and keepyour attention.
If you're not used to reading,it's harder to read and keep
your attention focused on ablock of text that all looks
(25:26):
very similar with no pictures.
If you need a picture book,read a picture book.
Start with that, but thenescalate to words.
I like you you think I soundsilly, but I'm I'm very actually
very serious.
It's why I put the bookshelf.
It's it's a big thing that Iwant people to do is just take
(25:47):
time out of their day to just bebored and do things that are
boring because this is gonnasound really weird, but this is
what it's coming to.
People, the lifeguards that areable to stare at the water for
hours at a time would make gooddevelopers.
(26:11):
People who are willing to shutoff their podcast, shut off the
video consumption, pick up abook for an hour a day and just
read, read that book, they'regonna make good developers.
People who can be bored, that Ican trust that their focus,
(26:32):
that their motivation is goingto be way higher than people
that overconsume.
If I can train someone to learnto code, that's easy.
It takes time, but that's theeasy part.
To train them to be consistent,have good habits, have good
(26:54):
communication, so much more thatgoes into being a dev.
The technical part takes long,but that's the easy part.
You start improving, and here'sa beautiful thing: you start
improving your habits, you startreally focusing on your brain
chemistry that affects yourmotivation, that affects your
focus.
You start focusing on thatstuff, but all the learning
(27:18):
becomes easier.
The job search becomes moremanageable.
It doesn't feel overwhelming,it doesn't feel as stressful.
I I want to share one lastthing.
I developed chronic tinnitusseven years ago, something like
(27:39):
that.
I hear ringing in my ears 24-7.
If you ever get that, it issomething very hard to deal with
in the beginning, especially ifyou go on forms and people
talking about they're just theyfeel hopeless.
Let's just keep it simple forYouTube.
They feel very hopeless.
(28:00):
Getting tinnitus taught me howmalleable the brain is.
Like if I focus on it rightnow, I can hear ringing.
99.9% of the day, I don't hearit.
I focus on it, I hear it.
(28:20):
But my brain can adapt to thatstimulus because it doesn't
serve me.
The only time I hear it is likewhen I it's kind of interesting
because it's almost like ahealth monitor for me.
If I eat something in highsugar, high carbs, I start
noticing it more.
It gets louder, right?
So it's not its normal volume,it gets louder.
(28:42):
And I use that to be able topick out the foods that do well
for me.
I I use that to realize my bodydoesn't like caffeine from
certain sources.
It's interesting.
It's actually been incrediblyhelpful.
And my perspective on tinnitus,to see it as like a health
(29:03):
healthometer, it completelychanged how I interpreted the
stimulus.
I went from very hopeless tolike improving my health and
really focus on that more thanI've ever been.
It's just it's just weird,something that seems bad at
(29:25):
first, but my entire perspectivechanged.
And I think that's what a lotof people need to do with
learning to code and becoming adeveloper.
A lot of this stuff that feelsdifficult and boring and
straining and anxiety inducing.
If you figure out how to changeyour perspective and how you
(29:48):
see all of this, it becomes likea game.
You can really gamify a lot ofthis and you can feel
achievements and grateful for alot of things that you're going
through.
And you might not see.
that now but perspective iseverything and I think a lot of
the advice that I gave can helpimprove that perspective.
(30:09):
So what is my final tip?
Learn to stare at a wall.
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Ruthie's Table 4
For more than 30 years The River Cafe in London, has been the home-from-home of artists, architects, designers, actors, collectors, writers, activists, and politicians. Michael Caine, Glenn Close, JJ Abrams, Steve McQueen, Victoria and David Beckham, and Lily Allen, are just some of the people who love to call The River Cafe home. On River Cafe Table 4, Rogers sits down with her customers—who have become friends—to talk about food memories. Table 4 explores how food impacts every aspect of our lives. “Foods is politics, food is cultural, food is how you express love, food is about your heritage, it defines who you and who you want to be,” says Rogers. Each week, Rogers invites her guest to reminisce about family suppers and first dates, what they cook, how they eat when performing, the restaurants they choose, and what food they seek when they need comfort. And to punctuate each episode of Table 4, guests such as Ralph Fiennes, Emily Blunt, and Alfonso Cuarón, read their favourite recipe from one of the best-selling River Cafe cookbooks. Table 4 itself, is situated near The River Cafe’s open kitchen, close to the bright pink wood-fired oven and next to the glossy yellow pass, where Ruthie oversees the restaurant. You are invited to take a seat at this intimate table and join the conversation. For more information, recipes, and ingredients, go to https://shoptherivercafe.co.uk/ Web: https://rivercafe.co.uk/ Instagram: www.instagram.com/therivercafelondon/ Facebook: https://en-gb.facebook.com/therivercafelondon/ For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iheartradio app, apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.