Don't Be Afraid To Be Bad At It

One of my favorite quotes about growth comes from the cartoon Adventure Time:

"Dude, sucking at something is the first step to being sorta good at something" - Jake the Dog

A huge part of being a software engineer is trying and learning new things. Inevitably, you will be bad at many of these things the first time you try them. Maybe you botch a presentation to senior leadership, maybe the first time you lead a project everything goes sideways, maybe you just don't get how a new tool works.

This is how it's supposed to be! If you're not failing, you're probably not growing. Try to fail quickly, learn from your failures, and then try again. If you never do work or try technology outside your comfort zone you'll never grow, which is very problematic in an industry that changes constantly.

So go ahead, be bad at it at first.