Foundations Reflection
-DA,
Where did the time go?
Time flies when you're having so much fun.
What surprised me the most in my core learning was how little I know about myself. I've been so busy with this thing called life and seldom have I ever stopped to take a breather. It has been taken for granted for too long. I work hard and go out there and have fun but one thing I should do more is stop and smell the roses. I now understand how down time can be so important, to look back and reflect, see what I could have done better.
I have heard about Mindfulness but never really put much interest in it. It's now one of the things that I'm grateful for. During sprint 5 everything was just happening all at the same time. My family and I were moving houses and it was my last week at work and I was rushing the handover, I could barely get any study time in. In the workplace, I usually can handle pressure with grace but that's because I know what to do. This time, JavaScript was new to me. So this is what real pressure felt like, your heart rate goes up and rain clouds take over your mind you couldn't see that you were missing a curly bracket through the fog! Then I remembered what I learned from the Mindfulness app Smiling Mind… ask myself “Am I still breathing?”… Stepped away from the laptop for a 15-minute mind reset… I looked at my code I still couldn't tell what was wrong with it but I was a bit calmer and could ask for help without desperately flailing my arms in the air.
Core learning was not easy at all for me when I first started, I've never been asked to sit and really search my purpose and who I am and can be to fulfill that purpose. Core learning was not part of any schooling or training I've been in and I can see now what I was missing in the past. Knowing my values and identity allows me to appreciate what and who I have around me even more. Knowing what I'm good at allows me to work on my limitations and has helped me determine how I can make my learning more fruitful. Knowing how I work and solve problems allows me to fill in the gaps where necessary to be successful in my Dev Academy journey. Putting core learnings to practice is still a work in progress for me, getting there but not there yet 😉.
Core learning may seem unnatural but I appreciate its significance. While it is true that we are learning different programming languages to give the computer instructions effectively, we must also know how we can make it easier for users to access what we've built. We must also know how to be an effective team player because even in a remote setting, there will always be another human you'll be working with. Re-quoting Mac McElhaney from my EI blog, he said in his TEDx Talk, “It's not always about who has the most smarts, sometimes it's about what you do with those smarts.”