The Anxious Developer: What is Resilience and How to Build It?


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"Peace comes from within. Do not seek it without." - Buddha


Hey Reader,

How is your week going? I wanted to quickly check-in and send you some food for thought as we approach the weekend.

Today, I wanted to talk about resilience - a crucial skill for Software Developers who want to overcome stress and anxiety in their careers.

What is Resilience?

You might or might not come across the notion of resilience…

Resilience is the ability to bounce back from tough situations and adapt to change. It doesn’t mean to be free of anxiety and stress or to appear tough in challenging situations.

It’s about how many times you recover from those less pleasant situations. May it be a panic attack or just the lack of motivation to do anything.

If you are a fan of the movie Rocky, you will know exactly what I mean. It wasn’t that Rocky was a better striker, more accurate or more brave. It was his resilience that made Apollo look like he was losing even if he was the one winning!

So how do we build Resilience?

There isn’t a "secret sauce" or "one size fits all" approach to resilience. Each person has to find their way into that inner negative voice that tells you to quit/stop or there is no way out of this.

However, you can build resilience by applying small changes in your life first, like:

  • Going for a walk, doing dishes, etc. when you feel like just crawling in your bed and staying in a freezing state.
  • Showing up to work even when you feel like you won’t be able to.
  • Getting comfortable with uncomfortable feelings.
  • Doing one more pushup or squat when you think you gave it all.

Those are just some examples, you know yourself better on what things you usually avoid and what you wished you did instead. So work on those first!

Remember, building resilience takes time and practice. But with little effort, you can become more adaptable, confident, and capable of handling whatever comes your way.

There is something more…

I actually talked about "How to Build Resilience" in this episode of The Anxious Developer Podcast with Brock Predovich, my co-founder and one of my very good friends!

We went on a whole emotional roller coaster journey with Brock talking about Entrepreneurship, Anxiety, Depression, Family, Traveling and how we managed to overcome those obstacles.

We were very vulnerable about our journey in hopes to help other people who might be struggling with the same things.

Give it a listen and let us know what you think about our conversation!

That’s it for this week!

I wish you a great weekend ahead and remember to switch off from your work and spend some time on things you actually enjoy. Did you tried painting recently or perhaps scale modeling? What about completing a 1000 piece puzzle?

Try something else this weekend. Who knows, you might be happily surprised by what you might discover by spending some time with yourself!

What are you planning to do this week? Let me know by replying to this email! 😊

— Andrei

Let's connect! 💬 You can find me on Instagram and Twitter.


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A weekly newsletter tailored for Software Developers seeking to reduce their stress and overcome anxiety in the workplace!

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