Fear of Failure - Part 2

Sophie Gill · 23 November, 2020

A few months ago, when I was only a few months into my role at Cleo, I wrote about experiencing anxiety around failure when writing and deploying code.

Truth be told, I had completely forgotten about that post until I was debugging a SSH issue on my site this morning! But I wanted to take some time to reflect on how things have changed, nearly 6 months later.

Thankfully my fears have subsided. I do sometimes get a flash of anxiety when hitting the release button, but it’s manageable and hasn’t stopped me wanting to take on bigger challenges.

As I suspected, time has been the biggest factor here. It’s flown by, but I can see how much I’ve learnt about Rails development and the Cleo app in the last 9 months. That has really helped to boost my confidence. I’ve also been through my first performance review at Cleo, and that helped me realise that most of the pressure I experience comes from myself.

And, while I decided that now wasn’t the time to invest serious time and money into a Computer Science degree, I have found ways to continue learning. I’ve found the Brilliant app a great way to learn some of the under-pinning computer sci concepts, and I really enjoy the Maths curriculum too. Well worth the annual subscription fee 🤓

So my message to past me is - just keep going, and trust yourself a little more 💖

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