I wanted to write about my story but I didn’t know exactly how to start, or even what name to give it. Meantime, while talking with someone that I met when I was younger, during the phase when I was studying biology, and who after all these years, I now work with in a web developer company. I asked for help and he gave me this idea for a title which I immediately fell in love with. Thanks for that! Now I have somewhere to start from.
A year ago exactly, at the age of 30, I started my story within web development. But first things first. I graduated in marine biology some years ago. I have a boat driver license’s, I’m a scuba diver and I love all the sea related aspects. But life doesn’t always go the way we expect and sometimes we have setbacks.
I had a really serious car accident that made me unable to walk for a long time. I spent 2 months in a hospital bed and another one at home. When I finally started doing physical therapy to be able to walk again, it wasn’t a process that made me feel healed right away. For years I had a lot of pain; I was unable to do certain movements or walk for too long. I felt that I was incapable of doing things for myself or to even try to go after a job related to my field, at least in the outdoors, which was what I really would have liked to do.
I even tried to take another course, an accounting course, but I just hated that. I also started a project myself, with cacti and succulents. I created a brand and had a lot of work for some time, and although it wasn’t enough to pay my bills, it was really great to show to myself that I was able to be creative and start new things.
Then, 2 years ago, I started to think about what else I also loved, and I always love the small changes that I made on blogger or tumblr, inserting scripts etc. So, I researched courses related to something like that and after a lot of investigation and conversations with people in this area, I finally decided to go attend a Web Design course.
The course was very complete. It covered how to conduct a good briefing, how to organize ideas, ux and ui, web design tools and concepts, delivery of a full website design and its prototype, and digital marketing. The last part was to build our own website based on our prototype, using html, css, Jquery, JavaScript, PHP and SQL.
The course ran from October 2017 until July 2018. I was working part-time in a store and half of my wages went towards paying for the course every month.
So after I finished the course I kept on studying, focusing on the Frontend development part. I even reduced my working hours, because I was very committed to studying and I said to myself that I was going to change career that year. My only focus started to be that main goal. No distractions, “but this” or “but that”.
When I had my first job offer it felt almost unreal. I only believed it when I was seated at my desk. At the same time, I felt like I deserved to be where I was and that all the hard work paid off, but at the same time I felt so scared.
Some time later, I went to a party where I made some connections and met a great friend that has always believed in me since then, and he invited me to another party where I met the company owners of my future job, where I’m working now, and that was really a dream come true because I immediately felt in love with the office and the company.
I’m now 31 years old and I’m happy that I made the decision not to resign myself to giving up, but to search for new challenges and to make goals and accomplish them.
There will always be hard moments in our path, things are not easy, and there are times when we feel that we want to quit, or that we are not capable. Those days are just that. Days. We shouldn´t build our lives around those. But, rather, create the opportunity to have better days. Focus on your goals and never quit.
I’m not comfortable in my work, coming from a different field makes me feel that I always must work harder or learn more. But the secret is to never let our fears overcome our dreams. Look around, exchange ideas with your friends and colleagues, they can help you a lot in tough moments.
Take time for yourself. It’s never to late to believe in yourself. Do you have a dream? Go for it! I hope that my story inspires you to also go after what you want.
Atomic Fox 