Sometimes you just need to think things through all the way before jumping into something. I’m the type of person who just loves to jump in. I get excited what can I say? I’m anxious to do something new and often times I forget that I haven’t quite thought everything through. It results in having to back peddle and fix a shit ton of mistakes.
Today has been a prime example with that. I was so excited this past weekend, mostly today, to get cranking on my new web application that my mentor and I have decided would be an excellent approach to developing my skills. With tons of excitement and confidence I jumped in and started to crank out code, ok so crank out isn’t exactly precise it’s a bit of an over exaggeration it’s more like muddle through but I digress. Anyways I was making some excellent headway and was confident in my progress and when I touched base with my mentor today he agreed.
With growing confidence in my progress once I got done with work tonight I started to code wanting to make more progress in the direction that I was going. Then BOOM brick wall and realizations galore! I didn’t think things through. How could I? I still don’t fully understand how to plan out an app or design a database but fuck it, brick wall be damned, I had to sort this out. Started a 3 hour endeavor to try and fix everything which meant blowing up nearly all my progress because I didn’t think things through. I finally figured things out and got my app back on track and 3 hours later I’m only slightly more along in the app than I was this morning but I’m on a correct projection.
The point of all of this is that sometimes, as much as we want to just jump in because we are excited, we need to step back and think things through. Our impulses to just jump is not always the best approach. I’ve learned that the hard way over and over again throughout my life. I’ve practiced the art of stepping back and thinking things through to the point where I’ve been pretty proficient in it, however, I still fall victim to impulses seductive nature. Life should be lived from moment to moment but every once in awhile we need to have the presence of thought to know that some things we need to just think out before we jump.