Is that why most people quit?
This year I have officially changed my career path. That’s crazy and I feel that I’m using a completely different part of my brain now (I’m a psychologist graduated and now I’m a Developer). For some time now I’ve decided to deal with demons inside of me and learn things I always wanted to. It was a hard decision, and even hardest to put on practice, but I was convinced that there was no way back.
I was super excited and although I could foreseen a few challenges down the road, ultimately I'd be about the joy of learning. Little did I know that I was so wrong…
As I started my journey I could see myself facing a lot of frustrations. Every time I was trying to learn something new, a bunch of others new technical things would get in the way. It felt like a snowball, as the complexity of my studies got higher, I soon started to realize that I knew nothing or very little. And the more I studied, the more I realized how further I was from reaching my goal.
It all leads me to a night that I was on the sofa watching on TV a guy talking about some random stuff:
“During periods of major change, things tend to get worse before they get better.”
Woah, that made my mind explode. Every single process of deep learning has this abysm in the middle of the journey. I had to touch the lowest point to start climbing — the guy on TV was talking about economy, though.
When I shared this experience at work, a colleague told me that this theory already exists, of course I didn’t come up with this myself: it’s the J curve. Since then, I’ve read different articles from different areas about the subject. The theory also brings some Einstein affirmation’s that somehow contributes to the idea: “You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew”. So, to build a solid foundation is not enough, you will have to change all the perspective. You have to go to this bad position to do all the needs to change the situation, and maybe that’s why most people quit. It’s uncomfortable. You have to prepare your ground to receive something different from what you know.
It’s clear the impact this premise has made on me, it feels like I have found a lock combination.
I know Einstein would not be proud of me using his words between a “motivational speech”, but for now the J curve is my strongest motivation ever. Am I feeling dumb and understanding shit? Awesome. I may be in the correct path to achieve something cool. I was always this optimist person, and now I have a whole theory to embark it.
I encourage you to look out for more J curve, even-though I would love to talk more about it in future. And if you think differently, feel free to comment or reach out to me on social media.
