I was finding it difficult to get momentum going while unemployed. Home is very comfortable and filled with distractions, even when making earnest attempts at focus, some chore would need to get done or a mailman would show up and distract me from my flow.
This last week I immersed myself in coding thanks to Fractal bootcamp and it has opened up so much energy that needed to be released. I slept deeply every night knowing I gave each day my best and had progress that I could look back on, and next steps I could look forward too.
When you make your own schedule it’s easy to fall into the trap of existing in the distraction and carving time out for work. This past week, my default state has become the engagement and Ive had to learn to carve out time for rest.
As someone who has struggled to find a steady and healthy sleep schedule for all of my life, this is the first time I’ve been able to prioritize it. I had to, otherwise I would have easily crashed under the demanding routine and workload. And unlike in the corporate world, I’ve found that staying healthy is encouraged. I’ve heard instructors telling students to get some rest when they need to. As they say, it should be like building muscle, not breaking bone.
And it’s been great! The nighttime is so peaceful and dark, I knew I was going against some biological imperative when I’d stay up all night and uneasily sleep through the sounds of traffic and construction in the morning.
But it’s more than a place and a schedule. Here I’m surrounded with people who are hungry for this work. Who, like me, have quit jobs or are switching careers and are looking for something that better fits what they want out of life. This applies to both my fellow cohort and the instructors who tirelessly listen to our blockers and walk us through them. Teaching us how to debug for ourselves, reminding us to read errors carefully and set up tests. Teaching us new concepts and introducing us to new technologies. It’s a very dedicated mentorship that is incredibly sparse in educational institutions, but is so conductive to empowering the students.
Accelerator is right. We work fast, and faster every time.