Do you feel that programming is a stressful task? Normally, people think that coding is an easy job. However, this is not the reality. Programmers often feel discomfort while they learn to code. A few years ago, I was also in a similar situation when I started to learn to program. Often, I was engulfed with anxiety thinking about coding and I didn’t know how to fight with that feeling. In this article, I have discussed how you can handle and fight coding anxiety.

Why do programmers feel coding anxiety?

Let us first look at some of the reasons what make programmers stressed and give them anxiety. 

• When we start with coding, we normally cannot identify a proper learning path for us. There are various programming domains like software engineering, machine learning, artificial intelligence, data science, and others. All these domains have different requirements of skill sets. If you cannot identify what you have to learn, you will end up confused and stressed.
• Another mistake we generally make while programming is to compare our day 1 with someone else’s day 100. When we look at other people’s posts on social media or programming forums about their achievements in coding, we start to compare ourselves with them. This makes us feel nervous and causes coding anxiety.
• The third reason that contributes to coding anxiety is that we don’t have a proper learning path for us. The different domains of programming have various common subdomains. This will make you confused on several occasions and will make you think about what should you learn next. This confusion and absence of clarity about your learning path will lead to coding anxiety. 
• Not having a learning path also contributes to the lack of confidence while learning. You cannot track your progress if you don’t have a proper plan. In absence of a plan, we often feel that we are not studying enough or we are not learning in the right direction. This makes us feel insecure and contributes to coding anxiety.
• Normally, programmers work in teams that consist of developers with experience ranging from a few months to years. Often, junior programmers make the mistake of comparing themselves to other people. After comparing their skills with experienced programmers who are well versed in different tech-stack, the programmers start underestimating their skills. This makes them stressed and adds to the anxiety. 
• The average salary in a software developer or any other programming job is very high compared to other career choices. If we are starting with a programming job and we don’t get the desired salary, we often end up thinking that our skills are not good enough to attract higher salaries. This makes us feel insecure about our skills, hence resulting in anxiety.

How to Fight Coding Anxiety?

To fight coding anxiety, you just have to identify the reasons that are contributing to the anxious state of your mind. After that, you have to eradicate the contributing factors one by one. As we have already discussed various factors that cause coding anxiety, let us discuss some steps to fight coding anxiety.

• First and foremost, you need to identify what you want to learn. Watch videos, read blogs about different domains of computer science. Once you have identified the domain you want to enter into, you can easily decide the tools and techniques you want to learn. This will help you lessen your confusion regarding the learning process.
• After identifying a domain, you should choose a programming language that is best suited for that domain. For example, if you want to learn machine learning, artificial intelligence, or data science, you should learn python. If you want to get into software development, the Java programming language will be best for you. Similarly, if you want to learn core concepts like operating systems, programming languages like C and C++ will be best suited for you. 
• After identifying a programming language, you can start with learning basic constructs of the language. At the start, you don’t need to know the theoretical concepts of any domain and you can continue with learning the programming language itself. Learning things step by step will give you confidence.
• After learning the basics of a language, you should plan your entire learning process. When you start learning concepts, don’t just go with any learning material you find. Research well, take supervised courses and practice as much as you can. Having a concrete plan will help you track your progress. This will increase your confidence and hence, will help you fight coding anxiety. 
• After learning basics, do small projects for hands-on experience, participate in hackathons, solve different problems. This will help you sharpen your skills and will increase your confidence.
• If you work in a team, try to learn from each other. Don’t compare yourself to others. Learning from others will help you build your skills while comparing yourself to others will make you feel insecure about yourself. 
• When you start with a job, is most likely that you will get lower salaries. Don’t compare your salary with that of experienced programmers. You will start earning more with experience. Earning less does not mean you do not have the required skills to do the job. Have confidence in yourself and ace your career.

Conclusion

Anyone can suffer from coding anxiety. Be it an experienced programmer learning a new tech stack or a newbie trying to get into programming. If you have coding anxiety, you will most likely keep wasting time instead of working on your skills. So, it is important that you fight coding anxiety and focus on learning. We have already discussed the probable reasons for coding anxiety and how they affect your learning. You should identify the factors that make you anxious and try to remove them. After identifying the factors,  can work on the suggestions provided in this blog to fight coding anxiety. Once you identify the factors causing the coding anxiety and remove them, you will have a seamless learning experience that will make you a better programmer in the future. 

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