If we look at skills that we feel confident about in life, really confident about, they likely have one of these characteristic.

• It's something you've done before, exactly as is - cooking a staple dish
• It's something you've been doing for a long time - driving a car
• It's something you understand intuitively, you have solid mental models of the fundamental concepts - speaking a language

Programming is hard. But not necessary harder than many other skills we all have mastered with practice since we were toddlers.

The actual physical skill of transferring an idea into keystrokes to make a machine do a thing that was in your mind is learn-able by practice (just like learning to write words to express your thoughts).

But there is a also a psychological component, constant work is required to maintain a productive mindset. There are ups and downs and this take a tole on our minds.

Feeling like you're making progress, getting better, gives you the confidence to keep practicing the physical skill of typing keystrokes into a machine to make it do what you want it to do.

Another thing that has been key for me is developing intuitive understanding of foundational concepts. This give you the feeling of "I have no idea how to implement this, but I know I can figure it out". I know I will figure it out. That is a wonderful feeling. There might be a lot of work ahead (physical work, the labor) but there is this bedrock of a calm confident mind. It's an ongoing process and after 15 years I believe that this is a feeling worth chasing.

So if you're at the beginning of this journey, is there some fundamental concept that you desire to understand better? which you feel will move you closer to this confidence feeling?

I am asking because maybe I can make that happen by writing about it here!