Man, 2022 was a wild ride, especially when it came to work. I remember heading into it feeling pretty antsy. Like, I was doing the work, punching the clock, but it all felt kinda… flat, you know? Like I was just floating along, not really going anywhere special.
I was in this marketing gig, and for a while, it was good. But then I started to feel this real drag. Every morning, getting up, it was a whole thing. I’d stare at my screen, the tasks would pile up, and I just couldn’t get myself excited about any of it. It wasn’t just boredom; it was this deep, nagging feeling that I was missing something, that I wasn’t really using my brain for what it was meant for.
I started just, well, scribbling. Not really journaling, more like just jotting down random thoughts on sticky notes or in a little notebook I kept near my laptop. Things like, “What actually makes me tick?” or “If I didn’t have to worry about rent, what would I spend my time doing?” It started small, just random bits and pieces. I didn’t even think it was a “practice” at first. Just trying to clear my head, really.
Around April-May, that’s when things really started to churn. I felt this intense pressure, almost like the universe was telling me, “Dude, something’s gotta give.” My frustration levels were through the roof. I was snapping at my cat, forgetting appointments. It was bad. So, I figured, maybe it’s time to stop just scribbling and actually do something.
Taking Action, One Tiny Step
First thing I did was I started mapping out my day, not just work stuff, but everything. I used a simple spreadsheet. I wrote down what I actually spent my time on, minute by minute, for a whole week. And let me tell you, that was an eye-opener. So much wasted time, so much time doing things that didn’t bring any joy or actual progress.
Then, I picked one small thing I always thought about doing but never did: learning some basic coding. Not to become a developer, but just to understand it better. I found a free online course, something super basic about Python. Every evening, instead of just scrolling through social media, I committed to spending 30 minutes on it. No excuses. I started a dedicated notebook just for this. I wrote down every new command, every little error I hit, and how I fixed it.
It was slow going at first. Really slow. There were days I wanted to throw my laptop across the room. I felt dumb, like my brain just wasn’t cut out for it. But I kept at it. Thirty minutes. That was my mantra. Just thirty minutes, even if it felt like I learned nothing. I made myself record what I did learn, even if it was just remembering how to open the console.
After about a month of this, something shifted. It wasn’t just the coding itself, though I was slowly starting to get it. It was the feeling of doing something new, of pushing past that initial resistance. That small win, every single day, started to build up. I felt a little more… capable, I guess? Like, “Hey, if I can learn this confusing code thing, what else can I learn?”
The Unexpected Turns and The Realization
This little coding habit spilled over into other areas. I started looking at my marketing job differently. Instead of just doing tasks, I began thinking about why we did things that way, if there was a more efficient way, maybe even an automated way using some of the simple scripts I was messing with. I even pitched a few small ideas for automating some data collection, stuff that used Python. My boss was surprised, but open to it.
That was a huge confidence boost. It showed me that my brain wasn’t just for churning out ad copy. It could problem-solve in new ways. And that’s when the real change happened. I realized that my issue wasn’t just the job itself, but that I had stopped growing, stopped challenging myself. I had gotten comfortable, and comfortable became stagnant.
I started talking to people outside my immediate circle – old college friends, acquaintances on LinkedIn – just asking them about their careers, what they found fulfilling. I updated my resume, not with the intention of leaving right away, but just to see what skills I actually had on paper and what gaps there were. I even started an online portfolio of some of the small scripts and analyses I’d done on the side, just for fun.
This whole process, from those initial frustrating scribbles in the notebook to actually building small tools, it woke me up. I understood that my career wasn’t some static path laid out for me, but something I had to actively shape, experiment with, and record my progress on. By the end of 2022, I wasn’t just doing the same old marketing job; I was integrating new tech, taking on more analytical projects, and honestly, felt a million times better about where I was heading.
