We humans are very diverse creatures and that diversity is responsible for each of us having things we are good and bad at, in other words, our strengths and weaknesses. And this weakness can be in any form, be it biological or even physiological and it can range from basic phobias to chronic addictions. The way I see it, I think everyone in the world has more than one weak point and some of them can be minor and easily overlooked but some can be major and lead to problems which could have been avoided.
For me, I have a couple of weak points but I have worked on most of them over the years and they aren't much of a problem now while some others can be lived with because they aren't causing much damage in my life and I haven't seen any need to take any measures (yet) but there's this particular one I have been ignoring for years because I always believed it's not a major problem because it's one of the curses of being an introvert but these days, I am starting to realize it's a major problem that currently has the highest priority and that is;
Connecting with people
It's funny how this problem never existed before the COVID-19 era and I could easily network with people. I'm not even talking about doing it in person now but just to start easy, I can't even do it online and it's affecting my career. I remember when I started learning graphic design during the lockdown of 2020, I got tired of the same boring routine which majorly involved spending most of my time on social media, jumping between WhatsApp and Twitter. When I started learning graphics design, I documented my journey on Twitter and WhatsApp, always posting what I learned.
This helped me to connect with a lot of people both on WhatsApp and Twitter, which made it possible to start getting lots of gigs even while I was still learning. I can't count the number of times someone messaged me on WhatsApp and said "My friend said you can do logos, I want one for my business," I was getting recommended by people. That was great and all but things changed when I switched from graphics design to software engineering, and I took a break from social media so I could focus on learning it. Since then, I now find it hard to network with people or even post about what I am doing.
The crazy thing is that the people who have been in the software engineering field for a long time always advise beginners to put themselves out there, network with people and build connections because that's the best and easiest way to get a job in this current, crazy job market. I keep telling myself that I will start making posts on Twitter and start connecting with other people, mostly other developers but I keep procrastinating. I don't even know what the problem is or what I'm afraid of, but the bottom line is that I know I have a problem.
Before now, I was completely alone in my learning journey, not having anyone to talk to about tech and I only showed my projects to my sisters. But I recently did an internship and that was a big help to me because I was able to connect with others and now I'm in 2 WhatsApp groups with other developers and have made friends with people in other tech fields as well. Recently, I even got a job from the UI/UX designer I partnered with during the internship, something that would never have happened if I didn't make such connections.
Being in a WhatsApp group and talking to other people about my interests is the first step for me towards learning how to build up the necessary connections, but I still need to take it further and start putting myself out there online, I'm talking about Twitter and LinkedIn because at the end of the day, WhatsApp groups is still a small space and I'm still within my comfort zone. Maybe that's even my problem; finding it hard to leave my comfort zone. Anyway, I guess I should probably mention that this problem is also affecting my relationship with other friends because I barely talk to them these days.
It's just a matter of time before I start having a conversation like "Hey, it's been around 5 years since we spoke", that's if they don't even lose my number before then. I keep saying I will do something about it but eventually, I don't. Well, that's it, my major weak point for now. At least now I have started taking steps towards solving this problem and I have started small by making connections with a small set of people, but I still need to take it further and it's even not something I will consider optional, it's very necessary.
Thanks for reading
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Twitter: @kushyzeena