Self-criticism: from Enike to a specialist. Thinking out loud

Good day,% username%!
I could start this article from afar, throwing all kinds of appeals and theses, but I don’t want to bore anyone ... I just ask first, it would seem, obvious things:

• Have you ever thought that you are not doing what you always wanted?
• Do you ever think about the fact that while you act or, excuse me, bylocking, others are doing really interesting things?
• Do you want to grow in your eyes in the field of IT?

If all this is familiar to you, then I ask for habrakat.

Immediately I will clarify that these are the questions (or with the same meaning, but in a different formulation) that a more or less adequate person asks himself once in his life, and the subject matter does not necessarily apply to IT. But since the resource on which I place the post requires, I will reflect on an example.
We take a spherical “computer scientist” in a vacuum: an employee of the organization N. I settled after the institute. He can “code”, knows what Linux is and what it eats with, is familiar with WEB programming, on duty he does everything “what is ordered”: from changing the cartridge in the printer and reinstalling Windows to administering Active Directory and writing simple programs / scripts on Delphi / VBS / powershell.
At first, our hero is satisfied with everything, he learns a lot of new things for himself: he acquires knowledge in specific software, he is given to “touch” the server, there is an opportunity to apply knowledge in practice. But it takes a year, two, three, and he notices that “specific software” is not as difficult as it seemed to him at first, all work with servers is to replace memory or a processor, and the use of knowledge that he received in the university does not teach him nothing new. Simply put, work becomes a chore. With all this, getting a good salary, the desire to move forward in an explicit form is absent.

It is here that the time comes to ask our “admin” the three above questions, to which, upon reflection, he answers “yes and yes”.

Now let's look at the situation in a bit more detail.

1. What is wrong with everything that has been said, because a person has a job, he gets money, things are going fine?
   Technology does not stand still. In any industry, you must possess modern methods and means of achieving results. Simply put, if you stop learning something new, evolve, then it's a rubbish.
2. How does an enikey bogged down in monotony turn out to be from a thirsty knowledge graduate?
   It's all about motivation, more precisely in its absence. Portions of knowledge decrease in direct proportion to the fuse and desire for novelty. Time passes, and both of these values ​​disappear. Unfortunately, many (most?) Understand very late how huge the amount of useful information passes by them.

')
Finally, go to the most important thing. Who is to blame and what to do.

1. Self-criticism as a motivation. You should take off your rose-colored glasses and say that things are getting worse every day and soon you will find yourself an useless enikeyschik / bydlokoderom, if you do not start to change something. Even better, if you motivate people whose opinions you listen to. But in all you need to know the measure: it is important that these thoughts are exactly pushed to action, and not act oppressively.
2. Get rid of the routine. If you can't do it at work yet, do it in your life: go in for sports, find a hobby for yourself. It is desirable that this was accompanied by communication with new people, was out of the house. Changing the situation will also contribute: take a vacation and fly to some exotic country (and not the banal Turkey “all inclusive”), preferably with extreme.
3. Choose what you want to do. There are so many technologies and programming languages ​​around that it is very easy to get confused. You need to clearly understand what will be interesting and useful for you. Read the forums, wiki, documentation ,. Do not force yourself to do things that are not fun, it can lead to what you're leaving (routine, dissatisfaction with yourself). This step is perhaps the longest and most responsible, it should be taken very carefully.
4. Improve knowledge . No matter how foggy it sounds, you cannot formulate it in another way. Read books, use the Internet, find knowledgeable people who can tell you about the subtleties and nuances. As much as the number of technologies, so many of the various resources that help in these technologies to understand.
5. Do something! Yes exactly. It doesn't matter what you do at the beginning: a simple PHP site (if you chose Web technology), or an application (if you chose programming), the main thing is that it works and you see the result. In the process of creating your first “creation”, you will immediately find weak spots and gaps in the knowledge that you will need to fill. It is important that someone appreciates your work (put it on a specialized forum, give a link to a friend of a programmer, etc.). Do not be afraid of objective criticism, remember - you just learn and gain strength, every advice and comment is a plus to your experience.
6. Plan your time. Priorities are very important, and, moreover, at this stage no one has canceled the main place of work. Understand how many hours a day for you / week / month is normal for doing your own, for the time being, hobby. Some particularly fanatical people can work in the office during the day and then write the code for their project all night. One can only envy such a fuse, but one should know the measure in everything.
7. Make up your mind. In the end, when you realized that you are ready for serious actions, and the knowledge base allows you to start your serious project / startup, or join the development team to try your strength “in battle”. At this stage, there comes that line when a passion can grow into something more, and everyone decides for himself whether his hobby is a stock of knowledge for a rainy day and a means to quench his thirst for knowledge, or he will become his main activity.

Successful achievements! Be self-critical.

PS All the characters are fictional, coincidences are random.