for (SelfDoubt) {break;}
I have a proclivity to focus on accuracy and efficiency. I always find myself whiteboarding different situations and optimizing my approach as much as I can—in a coding environment and even beyond. As a person employing their right brain more, I deduce that drawing out a plan in excruciating detail and following it to the T will help me nail whatever I’m working on. However, wait a minute …
there’s a nasty bug! …
my function “broke”! …
what is happening? …
*surfs through StackOverflow*
my head hurts!
how am I supposed to be a CS major? …
.
.
.
[the void]
As a woman of color in STEM, my loop oftentimes runs for longer than I want to admit. However, from interactions with my friends, I realized that everyone has experienced this loop of self-doubt at least once in their lives when things don’t go their way! It’s completely natural. On recognizing the importance of a community in boosting collective self-efficacy, I would love to help other women in STEM find their break; statements in their loops of self doubt too! One learning I stumbled upon that really helped me is:
“Failure is redirection”
When I took my first intermediate data structures class in university, I often times became super frustrated by spending hours trying to fix mistakes I made in my code. However, thereafter, I would talk to my seniors, Instructional Aides, and even Professors during office hours to understand how they would have navigated the mistakes I made. Although I initially used to naturally be a little hard on myself for making mistakes in the first place, eventually growing to become an IA and actually being able to help others in the same class made me realize that I learned SO much more from making the mistakes I made than I would have otherwise. This is how life is. In the short run, mistakes might seem like the end of the world because you put in so much effort in avoiding/fixing them. However, your learnings do in fact compound in the long run. If you embrace each and every obstacle you encounter as a “growth opportunity”, your trajectory is constantly redirected in a direction resulting in you becoming an even better version of yourself! Isn’t it amazing that you’re growing?
Doing so might seem difficult, so here’s some news for you: you’ve grown so much already! We’re often so focused on where we’re doing in this very moment that we don’t take a moment to appreciate how far we have come. Blast your favorite hype song, walk around like the amazing person you are, and pat yourself on the back for everything you have done until now. Let your positive experiences so far reinstill your self-confidence!
So, whenever you encounter an obstacle that makes you doubt your capabilities, just remember to be kind to yourself and remind yourself of how far you’ve come and how far you’ll go from here! Hopefully, this helps you find your “break;” condition in your loop of self-doubt: )
Adviti Mishra