I used to be genuinely afraid of JavaScript. Like avoid it at all costs, pretend it doesn't exist afraid. HTML and CSS were my safe place and I was not leaving.
Then I got a job that required it. So. Here we are.
The problem with how I was trying to learn
Before that job I was doing what everyone tells you to do. Online courses. Practice platforms. Algorithms on Codewars.
And honestly? The algorithms did my head in. They still probably would. Not because I am not capable but because the examples made no sense to me. There was no system, no context, no actual purpose to what I was solving. Just abstract problems floating in a void asking me to reverse a string or find the fibonacci sequence for reasons I could not connect to anything real.
I would finish an exercise and think okay, and? I retained almost nothing because nothing was anchored to anything I actually cared about.
I kept redoing the same courses over and over hoping something would stick. Some of it did. Enough to give me a foundation. But I did not feel like I knew JavaScript. I felt like I had memorized some JavaScript, which is a completely different thing.
What actually worked
Then I started my job and everything changed.
Not immediately. At first I was looking at the codebase thinking what is happening here. But then I started to understand the workflow. How the data moved through the system. What each function was actually doing and why. What broke when something went wrong and where to look to fix it.
And then I fixed something. And then I fixed something else. And I did that five times a week for eight hours a day.
That is when it clicked.
Not because I suddenly became a different person or found some genius learning method. Because I had a purpose. A real system I could play with, break, fix, and understand. Every ticket was a lesson that mattered because it had consequences. Real data, real workflows, real problems that needed solving.
Repetition with purpose is completely different from repetition with abstraction. Nobody talks about that enough.
What I would tell someone struggling to learn
If you are grinding through algorithm challenges and feeling like your brain is full of holes, you are not broken. You might just be someone who learns by doing. By having an example that is connected to something real.
Find a project. Build something you actually care about even if it is small and messy. Get a job that throws you in the deep end. Contribute to open source. Find any context that gives the code a reason to exist.
The courses are not useless. The foundation matters. But the foundation only becomes a building when you have something to build.
Where I am now
I code in JavaScript every single day. I write logic, I debug APIs, I build integrations, I architect workflows. The person who was hiding in her HTML and CSS bubble would not recognize this.
The more I learn the more I realize how deep this rabbit hole actually goes. Which is either exciting or terrifying depending on the day.
Today it is exciting. Ask me again tomorrow.