How to keep learning well as a life-long creative.

When you started out as a beginner in your journey as a software engineer, you were interested and entranced by what was possible and doable. You were motivated by the end results and the reward that came with being a capable software person who could build things. Yet lately, things seems to have changed. You seem to have lost interest. You aren’t using up to 60% of what you know on the job. You have slowed down on up-skilling and focused squarely on securing the bag.

Learning can get very boring if you do it long enough without any tangible outlet to apply what you have learnt. Learning can feel very hard too if you aren’t making progress as fast as you might want to or need to with lots of friction in the way. Learning can seem empty and pointless if there’s no motivation or incentive to be better at something. Eventually, you could find yourself in a place where all learning has ceased and you are stagnant.

At this point, you are content only with not getting fired at your day job and cruising through the day with only the will to deliver on your tasks and nothing more.

At some point learning gets difficult and mundane but there are ways to keep going regardless.

What really helps here is to have a productive outlet (this could be via a hobby or work or a side hustle) fuelled by deep curiosity and earlier mastery in your field of endeavour.

Earlier in my career (as a software engineer), i heard a lot of people say and insist that passion isn’t important in the endeavour of being a creative. I initially agreed with them due to peer pressure but now i wholeheartedly disagree with them.

After almost a decade writing code and building software, i can say with my full chest that:

True passion comes from mastery and learning is bearable and fun because of deep curiosity.

What we call self-motivation is just sustained interest in something. Many times, that interest can fade away due to lack of progress or excessive friction which leads to getting less done in the pursuit of knowledge and experience.

Curiosity is what keeps interest in some career and endeavour alive. Without it, you’d loose interest and drop said endeavour. Yet curiosity isn’t enough though. A curious person can become disinterested in something if they met numerous setbacks and don’t get through them.

Whenever you are learning anything, strive for mastery. Without mastery, you’ll have a hard time building meaningful experience and staying motivated (even if you stay curious). Mastery also makes you capable enough to either punch through your setbacks or ease through them.

Stay curious and chase mastery and everything else will be added unto you.

Cheers!