This is not a post where I'm going to share with you some tips on how we can manage our anxiety in the programming world. There are no tricks, no tips, no secrets. I'm not going to tell you how to be the best programmer in the world. I'm not going to share any steps to learn a new programming language.

To be honest, at first, I wanted to write a post about how important it is to write and share our questions and doubts in forums like stackoverflow or github. This is going to be my next article 🙂

I changed my mind because I found in my Notion’s notes the following:

"I found myself thinking about this question: what am I going to learn the next few months, what about the rest of the year, what do I want to learn?"

This situation made me do some research on what kinds of things were out there, on the internet and booming, to learn. The thing is, everyone around me seems to know everything. Everything. Everyone knows about new frameworks, libraries, languages, improving skills, web3, data science... everything.

What about me? What do I know? It seems like I should know and learn about everything because, on the other hand, I'm a complete dumb person. _I feel like I'm nobody _(ha! damn impostor syndrome) It's a horror! Feeling that way.

Let's see, I've been working with react native and mobile app development for two years. I know that I know how to develop, about react native, about hooks, redux, firebase, push notifications, in app purchase, about analytics libraries, blah blah blah... I’m aware of that. But many times I think I don't know anything. It's exhausting.

Does it happen to you? I started to write this post one day when I was over anxious and feeling that I'm very small in such a big, egocentric and egoistic world as tech is.
And this goes beyond the company, the project, the team.

*Everyone talks about how great it's to work in the IT world. *

How much you can earn. But no one talks about the great tolerance you have to have to work in this area and the stress you suffer every day. I've cried because of the stress! (Please don't get to this point)

The only thing I can share from my point of view and that helped me feel better is:

Enjoying my free time.

I went on vacation. After two and a half years working non-stop. First big mistake.

Always take vacation days.

I started going for a walk after work, I started going to the gym for extra physical exercise, this helped me to clear my mind and sleep better at night.

I hang out with my friends during the week. So that the week is not so long and tedious. I spend time with family and enjoy it.

I also sometimes take short naps after work, and that's okay. Before i feel like unproductive because of that. But then I realized that it helps me to feel better.

I continue to go to my therapy sessions with my psychologist. I take care of my mental health. Please, if you can go to therapy, do it.

I know I'm missing a lot. Because I feel that way. Sometimes I feel like the stress is going to eat me up. But also, I have felt like I beat the stress, the frustration, the impostor syndrome. I'm beating fear. And I feel powerful about myself. 🙂

I think that as I started to balance my life and my free time, I started to believe a little more in myself. And to understand that I know a lot of things, and that I still have a lot to know and learn. And that's okay. It doesn't mean I'm dumb or stupid.

But the most important thing: everyone handles it or tolerates it in different ways. Maybe, at this point, you know how to manage your anxious or maybe not. Maybe you feel like you can explode out of frustration (I'm sure you can deal with it, I can, you can, I believe in you and you should believe in yourself).

I would love to read how you deal with it, so that we all feel a little less alone and a little more accompanied.