My Coding Journey So Far

A summary of my coding journey so far, why I decided to get into coding, and what I've learned so far.

Table of contents

Super Brief History

For the last 6 years I have been running a brand we created called Royal Essence. We sell candles and bath bombs with a ring inside. We started off in our garage, and within a few months quickly moved to a warehouse and eventually we had a team of 15+ employees. It was a crazy ride, especially the first 3 years. We worked our socks off and were stressed out all the time. Think of the typical overworked entrepreneur who is constantly putting our fires. That was our life.

That is we decided we it was time to throw everything we could at trying to have a baby. We had been trying for 3 years and had no luck. We had been to the doctors and had all the tests done and everything was fine. We were told we had unexplained infertility. As we went through the IVF process, we completely overhauled the business, going from making products in Australia to China, and moving from a warehouse to a 3PL. We were able to get the business to a point where it was running itself and we were able to take a step back.

It took at least 6 months to close the warehouse and took over a year to finally get all products made in China.

Then our son was born (Parker) and life as i knew it, changed completely. I was no longer working 12 hour days, 7 days a week. I was now a dad and I was loving it. I was able to spend time with my son and wife and enjoy life.

For the last couple of years I have been working from home doing what I love ... marketing and spending as much time with my son as possible. It's been absolutely amazing, but over that period I have found myself feeling less and less fulfilled with my work, but more importantly than that. I have realised Royal Essence is more than likely something we wont be able to rely on for the next 30 years. Ecommerce is getting harder and harder to succeed in, and we are seeing our sales decline ever since covid lockdowns ended. I knew I had to start looking into other options.

Why Coding?

Anyone who knows the Myers Briggs personality structure, may be familiar with my personality type ... INTP. I am a logical thinker, I love to learn, I love to solve problems, and I love to create. I have always been interested in coding, but never believed in myself enough, I was always telling myself I am not smart enough. I have always been a big fan of automation and efficiency, and I knew coding would be a great way to achieve that. Finally after going back and forth in my head, I finally decided to just start learning.

How I Started

February of this year is when i finally started learning. It's now June 5th (how the heck is it June 5th already), and I honestly and feeling frustrated at my lack of progress.

I had no problem learning HTML and CSS, its when I got to the real programming that I slowed down and have been struggling ever since.

What I've Learned So Far

I have watched a few Udemy courses on Javascript and Node JS and completed the Odin Project Javascript course. I have also been working through the Odin Project Node JS course, but I am finding it very difficult to understand. I am not sure if it's the way the course is structured, or if I am just not smart enough. I am going to keep pushing through and hopefully it will all click at some point.