Get over yourself: Start Coding, build your

Portfolio.
One big issue I had when building my coding portfolio was getting past my own
insecurity.

I felt that to showcase my skills as a coder I had to “create the next big thing” and amaze
anyone who looked at my code with new, innovative things… A mindset that basically
left me in paralysis limbo for over a decade.

Mountains upon mountains of scrapped projects that never saw the light of day no
matter how many hours I put into them because they weren’t perfect, or because I found
someone else who had already done it. Or any other stupid reason I gave myself to give
up.

Yes, it’s better to have amazing things, but you have to start making things before they
become amazing. Don’t aim for perfection, aim for “done”.

Ideas will come from anywhere

It’s hard to start random projects because we’re wired to think “how is this useful?” or
“what problem am I solving with this?”This is the same gatekeeping I mentioned above.

Find things that interest you, personally. Find anything that makes you want to go “yeah,
I want some piece of code that does X” - don’t doubt yourself, don’t ask you why, if
something inspires you, go for it.

That said, If you have a killer idea that will solve society’s problems GO FOR IT! (PLEASE!)

Silly Inspiration: My Story

To give you a personal example, very recently I was going to write the word “private”, but
I “fat fingered” and typed “oruvatr” (I type really fast, so if my fingers are slightly out of
place, I finish the word before realizing the mistake). Granted; this isn’t the first time
something like this happened to me, people misspell words all the time! “Fat fingering” is
a common issue. But that right there was my inspiration: “What if I made some code that
simulated this… just for fun?”

So I went on and wrote it. And I was amused. I tinkered with it for a little while, adding
some customizations and so on, then when I was done with it, I was just going to walk
away, and possibly forget it ever existed. But instead I chose to let my partner know “hey,
I made a silly piece of code, wanna see?” and she came over and just had a blast,
started laughing and having fun with it (temper your expectations, it’s not that funny).
After she went back to work she texted me: “That was really fun, you should add it to
your portfolio.” A thought that had never crossed my mind, and immediately as I read
that, the gatekeeper in my head started thinking “this code is stupid. It’s not good
enough. Why would I even?” etc… But I think it was her energy what gave me the ability
to just work past it. I started polishing it and even wrote it in two languages: JavaScript
and Python.

There it is. I made a piece of portfolio work. It’s by no means perfect, by no means
life-changing, or even useful… But it is done. I encourage you to start doing the same.
Who knows? Maybe the next bout of inspiration will give me a big idea.