Show your work! by Austin Kleon is the book I mentioned in the last post (which you can read here). It’s a nice, easy to read guide, that you can enjoy reading everywhere, due to it’s handy, small format.
Here are 5 things I’ve learnt from this publication:
1. Don’t be afraid to be an amateur.
Everyone started as one! And being an amateur has some excellent advantages. You are allowed to make mistakes. You try a lot of things out, because you don’t know what works and what doesn’t just yet, so you don’t keep the same path every single time.
So be an amateur, enjoy that phase and don’t compare yourself to someone a few years ahead in their career. It doesn’t lead to anything (anything positive at least). Instead- compare yourself to you from the day/week/month/year ago. See how much you grew!
2. It doesn’t exist if you don’t share it.
Especially in a tech-y dev world. If you don’t share it with the world, no-one can discover it (or you!). Share and be seen.
3. Consistency. *the reason this blog exists*
Do something every day and document every little step in your journey. It will be an awesome memory-keeper and you can look back how much you’ve accomplished when you have a bad day and feel like you don’t make any progress. This will also lower your chances of quitting. Successful people are the ones that sticked around long enough and had the perseverance to not give up.
4. Get out of your comfort zone.
Go out and meet people. Let them get to know who you are and what you do. Talk about yourself! That’s how you build your network and find same-minded souls to collaborate with.
5. Teach!
When you learn something new- teach it! Not only this will be beneficial to you, because you truly understand the subject when you can teach it to others, but also the person you taught is gaining a new skill or knowledge. Win-win!
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