As a software engineer, I always think about how I can improve my skills quickly, and I can build and deliver applications faster than now. Recently, I proved that consistency and mentorship are really important to improve my skills not only as a software engineer, but I think they can be implemented for any type of field.

I came up with consistency and mentorship through my ping pong skills. I have a hobby, which is playing ping pong. I started playing ping pong when I was in college around 2014 (I wish I could start early). However, when I started to play ping pong, I did not have a routine schedule to play or practice. After moving to the US, I have a ping pong buddy, Jayson, and we started playing ping pong every week in August 2021. Fun fact, we planned to play ping pong together in May 2020, but pandemics came. Finally, we made it happen last year.

When we played together, sometimes, I brought my GoPro to record our game. Therefore, we can see what is our mistakes. After around 7 months, we have several videos that we have already recorded. Amazingly, we can see many improvements even though we are not at the advanced level yet. Our improvement after playing consistently every week shows us the result. Check out the video below.

I was so happy with the result because I haven’t improved that fast before. If you know about Pingpong, I could not return backspin with topspin, but now, I can do that. Consistency brought me to another level.

After I saw our videos, that make me realized that if people are consistent to do something, it will not disappoint the result. I also remembered that my friend, Alfian, mentioned a statement from James Clear’s book, Atomic Habit, if we can get 1% better every day for a year, we will be better 37 times at the end of the year. You can watch the video below as well.

Why do I think about mentorship also? In fact, in the beginning, when Jayson and I played for the first time, I was better than him because I play ping pong earlier than him. Therefore, I gave him some advice to improve his skills, and now, he can beat me most of the time. If there is someone who can mentor and guide you, I’m pretty sure it will speed up your improvements.

Now, I think this is the time to prove it in my software engineering skills. I start to have algorithm night every Tuesday with Jessica, and I make a commitment to creating a blog post every month. I can’t wait to see how far my skills go next year.

Leave a comment below if you think consistency and mentorship are essential, and I’m curious how many people players see this post?