After understanding where I went wrong, where do I go from here? What am I going to do to avoid overloading myself with work that will never get done? How will I avoid overworking myself to the point where I never learned anything at all?

The answers to these questions are simple. There is no guarantee I won't feel these feelings again. However, there is a way to avoid overloading and overworking myself. The way is having a structured plan. A plan that allows me to digest what I've learned without over doing it. What is this plan? My plan, in short; is to take a bite a day so to speak.

How would you go about eating an elephant? You start with a bite, then follow that up with another bite. The point being, that in the IT/ Cybersecurity space you will learn high level concepts that take a while to understand thoroughly. It takes time for certain concepts to become second nature and to grasp a true understanding of said concepts. I remember in my first course module, Networking Fundamentals, when we all learned subnetting for the first time. Our instructor did an incredible job of teaching the material and structured his examples in a very digestible way. That didn't stop half of the class, including myself in thinking our instructor was literally speaking a whole another language! Credit to Gerry for being an incredible instructor. We also got to learn binary after that, so you know how well we all did with that.

Knowing all of this, what's the plan now? The plan is to spend 3-4 hours a day working on one subject. Whether that's my current course work, or going back through my notes from previous classes. You may ask, why only 3-4 hours? If you have the time, why not spend most of your time learning? I have a simple answer to these questions. In my experience so far, which this process for me has been going on 9 months now; I believe that you can spend TOO much time grinding and learning. For me personally, when I've put in an exhausting amount of time learning and studying. I've found that you can have diminishing returns on that time invested. Our time is valuable, the time we spend with family, or simply the time in the day. Why spend 8-12 hours a day studying and learning, when after that time I may not even be able to tell you what I've done? In 8-10 hours, you can read and do so much in that time that you will likely forget and not digest what you have actually learned. For me, I have structured my learning sessions in smaller time segments. For example, when I have a plan to study or work on a project. I will usually schedule 3 hours for what I am doing. Sometimes I will increase that time depending on how I am feeling. If I am extremely focused and excited for what I am doing, I may spent a little more time. If for some reason, I don't have the focus and I am getting distracted easily. I will simply put it down, so to speak. I will get up from my computer and stretch, get water and try to digest the work I did.

The plan seems easy enough, doesn't it? On the surface, it really is. That is the point of today's post. Grinding myself into oblivion won't help my learning process. Overwhelming myself over what I don't know today will only lead to feelings of discouragement and disappointment. I've found myself to be understanding concepts much better lately, when I've given myself time to digest a subject. The field of IT/Cybersecurity is full of fascinating concepts and challenging topics to learn, especially for a newbie in the field. It's critically important to remind yourself of the great work you have done, especially when you are tired and may not have it today. In those moments, it's imperative to show yourself grace and continue to be positive about the path you are taking.

Your path will not always be linear. You WILL have set backs. You will have days where you don't have it. That is okay. There is nothing wrong with understanding where you are personally at, and determining what is best for you. No one will learn at the same rate, and it may take you longer to grasp concepts then others. That doesn't mean you won't learn or you can't do this. Just means to take the step back and realize what you do well, and what doesn't work for you. Staying present in the moment is so important to help keep us from letting our my minds drift into the future. Just take care of the moment and the rest will take care of itself.

Let me know what your plan is! Was there a moment where you grinded on a subject, and then the light bulb went off? Have you had to readjust your learning schedule based on what you've learned about yourself? Let me know!

Thank you all for reading these posts about my journey. In my next posts, I will start talking about projects I am doing, and going through the details of those.

Thanks again! See you all next time!