Go at Your Own Pace

Additionally, try to focus on running your own race. At this point in your career, you’re competing only against yourself, not others, so try your best not to put pressure on yourself if your peers are progressing in their careers at different paces than you are. Even though it may seem like you’re running the same race, each person begins at a different starting line and is running to their own finish line. It won’t do you any good to compare yourself to others because you’re not even running the same race.

​caution​ Keep in mind that as you get promoted and move up the org chart, you will have to compete against others as the number of available roles begins to narrow. You’ll have to shift your mindset from competing against yourself to competing against others, and this is where the soft skills become even more important.

People learn at different rates, and what may come easy to one person might take weeks or months for someone else to grasp. Learning a new skill often requires you to change your way of thinking, sometimes forcing you to change how you approach a problem. While it might click right away for some people, try not to get discouraged if it takes you a little longer to learn a new technology.

You should be proud of every raise, promotion, job offer, or other career milestone regardless of how long it took you to reach it. These things take a lot of hard work—and more importantly, a lot of patience. Just focus on growing each day as a programmer and as a person, because you’re in control of your career and only you get to decide when you’ve crossed the finish line.