Development for Life Success — Growth Mindset
Learning is a lifelong journey filled with numerous challenges and obstacles. However, these impediments aren’t there to block us rather, serves as an opportunity to improve and become a better version of ourselves.
DISCLAIMER: This is not an article about learning how to code.
As a young lad who has been programming for quite some time, I understood very early that in order to succeed and become a master of my craft, I must push myself to work really hard, learn a whole lot of stuff and make sacrifices when the need arises. But something was lacking…my ability to interact and collaborate meaningfully with others.
For the most part, I consider myself to be an introverted, solo-learner. My inability to relate well to people has cost me a lot in the past. Luckily for me, like many skills, soft skills & personal development is something that can be learned.
Last year I was tasked to help build an ecosystem of developers in Umuahia through Google’s Developers Group (GDG). Although I’ve attended several community meetups before, I had no idea how those guys do it. This was a really challenging task for me because I would have to organize, facilitate or speak at meetups, study jams or IO extended.
The old me would have shied away and given excuses as to why I’m so busy and can’t be available but I refused to let this get in the way of my growth. I embraced the challenge, roll up my sleeves and said let’s do this.
It is always during our more painful times we develop the depth of our character and taking up challenges builds the resilience necessary to face even greater challenges to come.
I gave my first public speaking at our first meetup and that feeling of triumph and accomplishment made me want to do more (and I certainly did). Through these community work, I’ve had more friends
Together with my awesome team, we built one of the fastest growing developer ecosystems in Umuahia. This was all possible because of a change of perspective and how I saw the challenge presented to me as an opportunity for growth.
Developing a growth mindset and following through isn’t easy but it surely sets you up for one thing and that is — success.
So when faced with a challenge, just say this to yourself
I have it within me right now, to get me to where I want to be later — Prosper Otemuyiwa
I wrote about my journey and how we achieved this in a previous article that can be found here.
It’s a very competitive world out there and only the truly motivated, self-driven individuals with the right mindset (growth-mindset) will be able to get ahead of the pack and beat the competition.
Yes! The journey is only 1% complete and I’m excited for what’s to come next.
