Growth Mindset for Programmers - you do not need to be a genius to code

When YouTube convinced me I had to be a child genius to code

When I was a fetus and first started coding, I honestly thought I had to be a genius. Like, child-prodigy-on-a-documentary level smart. I blame YouTube for that. Their algorithm baptized me with a video called something like 14 year old genius programmer. I remember the thumbnail too. It had the classic prodigy energy - a kid sitting at a Mac, code on screen, that confident half-smile that says I know 19 programming languages and also how to do taxes.

The video was about Santiago Gonzalez. If you have not seen it, picture a super young teen calmly explaining code in a way that makes you question your life choices. He is talking about languages, building apps, and his eyes have that curious spark you see in people who are just wired to tinker. The camera cuts between him typing, showing snippets of projects, and narrating his thought process like it is the most natural thing. No fluff. Just a kid who is clearly having fun with a very grown up skill. That video stuck in my brain for years. It felt like proof that unless you were born built different, you were just late to the party.

One day I thought, hey, what is Santiago up to now. So I Googled him. Found his site. Turns out he is out there actually doing the thing - building, researching, shipping, and learning. He is got the academic chops, the engineering title, the whole path people imagine when they say I want to go far in tech. Which made me say out loud: he is 23 and already has a PhD. What the fuck. Meanwhile I am over here arguing with my coffee machine like it is a state machine that forgot a transition.

Here is the point. You do not need to be Santiago to be a successful programmer. Santiago is an exception. He is the real-life version of young Sheldon when it comes to learning how to code. And bless him for it - the world needs people like that. But most of us are not that. I am definitely not that. I am living proof that an idiot like me can learn to code. Which means it is not about being a genius. It is about something way less sexy and way more useful in the long run.

Prefer watching instead of reading? You can watch the full walkthrough below, or keep scrolling to read the complete article.

It is not smarts - it is tolerance for being trash for a while

Here is my actual thesis, tattoo it on your forehead if you need: coding is a tolerance game. How long can you tolerate being bad at something without quitting. That is it. That is the whole game. This is why I keep seeing the same trait in so many good programmers, from juniors to staff engineers. It is obvious. It is simple. And it is powerful.

They have a growth mindset.

Let me explain without sounding like a motivational poster printed on a beach background.

Fixed mindset vs growth mindset for developers

What a fixed mindset looks like in code

A fixed mindset is believing your abilities are stuck. You are either good at math or you are not. You are either a natural at code or you are not. People who think like this tend to say things like:

• I am just not good at math.
• I will never understand programming.
• I was not born for this.
• Debugging is something other people just know how to do.
• Algorithms are for geniuses who drink black coffee and speak in Greek letters.

And once you believe that, you stop trying. You avoid hard problems. You treat errors like personal insults. You study less because you think it will not change anything anyway. Then your results get worse and your belief gets stronger. It is a self-own in slow motion.

What a growth mindset looks like in code

A growth mindset says your skills are trainable. Not instantly. Not painlessly. But trainable. You can get better through time, effort, and smarter practice. People who think like this will say things like:

• This is hard, but not impossible.
• I do not get this yet.
• If I keep at it, it will click.
• Let me try another approach and see what breaks.
• Feedback sucks to hear but it is a shortcut to getting better.

They see challenges as reps. Errors are clues. Feedback is fuel. And they care less about looking smart today and more about being skilled six months from now. That shift sounds small, but it changes how you study, how you handle bugs, and whether you even show up when it gets tough.

Two beginners walk into a CS class: MrBeast vs Queso

Let us run a simple story. We got two beginner programmers in school. We will call them MrBeast and Queso. No, not the real MrBeast. Just a guy named Mr. Beast who is allergic to effort. And Queso, who I will describe exactly how he describes himself: the 500 ton paycheck to paycheck low income Twitch streamer Queso. The lore is deep, the wallet is not.

MrBeast - fixed mindset edition

MrBeast hits a hard problem and instantly thinks I must not be smart enough. Maybe programming is not for me. He spirals. He stops doing homework the second it challenges him. He crams just enough to pass or sometimes not even that. His grades dip. That dip becomes proof he was right about himself. He quits earlier and earlier. Now he has no reps, no momentum, and a growing conviction that coding is a gate kept world.

Queso - growth mindset edition

Queso faces the same problem and goes, yikes, this is tough. But not impossible. He opens the textbook. He Googles. He watches a video at 1.25x. He asks a friend. He asks a random in a Discord. He keeps poking until the error message changes, which is how you know something did something. Over time, Queso's skills compound. He starts to recognize patterns. He becomes easier to teach because he listens to feedback instead of defending his ego. He actually reads comments on his code like they are tiny free coaching sessions. His grades improve because his process improved.

Also, Queso reads Sloth Bytes because he is smart like that

He also happens to read my favorite newsletter, Sloth Bytes. What is Sloth Bytes. It is one of the greatest newsletters ever for programming because I made it. I am biased. But it is actually useful. Sloth Bytes is a weekly newsletter where I share bite-sized programming lessons to help you get better and think clearer. It is free. It already passed 1,500 subscribers and my goal is to make it one of the top newsletters for programming. So join Queso and subscribe to Sloth Bytes so you can become a better programmer. I am sorry, did you just say no. I do not take that for an answer. You better subscribe right now. Do it. Do it anyway.

The two big benefits of a growth mindset: learning and resilience

1) Learning - how I went from overwhelmed to okay, I got this

When I first started coding, it was during college. It was not cute. The assignments were heavy and I felt outmatched. I remember staring at pseudocode like it was an ancient riddle. There were weeks where I thought I am not cut out for this. The math felt like a foreign language. The algorithms felt like magic tricks I was too slow to learn. Imposter syndrome was basically my roommate. And I was impatient because I wanted results fast without earning the foundation first.

The worst part was watching other students cruise while I flailed. They raised their hands with clean answers while I was still trying to align my curly braces. It sucked. But eventually I realized that beating myself up was not helping. It was actually making it harder to focus. So I tried a new script: I cannot do this right now, but it will click if I keep at it. And little by little, it did. Not overnight. Not in a montage. But in tiny wins that added up over months.

I started seeing assignments as practice reps, not grading traps. I did the required solution and then tried a second approach just to see how it felt. Was that required. No. Did it make me better. Absolutely. I took free online courses. I read docs. I worked on tiny side projects where I could apply the thing I just learned before I forgot it. I let myself be a beginner for real, which is strangely hard for adults because our pride hates being new at stuff.

Once I stopped pretending I should be good already, my brain chilled out enough to learn. That switch helped me adapt to new concepts way faster. I stayed flexible. I stopped panicking every time a concept did not land right away. And eventually the scary stuff became normal. The algorithms started to make sense. The math was not a monster anymore. Turns out repetition works. Who knew.

2) Resilience - turning bugs, bad grades, and rejections into fuel

Programming is trial and error on purpose. You build stuff. You break stuff. You rebuild it. You get stuck on a bug that makes you question your identity and then it turns out you forgot a comma. Ask me how I know. I have made a spectacular amount of errors. But each time I hit one I tried to treat it like a mystery to solve instead of a personal failure.

I would ask: why did this happen. Where in the chain did the state go sideways. What assumption lied to me here. Is this code ugly because I rushed it or because I never learned the cleaner pattern. Questions like that helped me improve faster than pretending the mess did not exist. I wrote little postmortems for myself. I saved snippets of gotchas. I kept a bug diary for a while, which sounds nerdy but is insanely useful. Every entry was a free lesson I did not want to pay for twice.

Doing this in school was harder because grades feel like the end of the world. A bad test hurts. But even there I tried to treat each mistake as data. What did I miss. Did I misread the question. Did I forget a definition or did I never understand it in the first place. That same approach saved me in interviews too. I bombed more than a few. Instead of sulking for a week, I wrote down exactly what threw me, what topic I needed to study, and how I would practice it. That turned rejections into a feedback loop. Each one pointed at a gap I could close. Over time, the gaps got smaller and my confidence got real because it was earned.

How to build a growth mindset when your brain is stuck on fixed

If you are currently stuck thinking you are just not a math person or you were not born for this, cool, thanks for telling me. Now let us change it. Four practical things.

1) Embrace challenges - get comfortable being uncomfortable

Shout out to Big Box for phrasing this perfectly. Get comfortable being uncomfortable. That feeling you hate when a problem is a size too big for you. That is the feeling you actually want. It means growth is about to happen if you stay with it. When you hit a scary task, do not bounce. Thug it out. Break it down like this:

• Write the problem in your own words. If you cannot explain it simply, you do not understand it yet.
• List the inputs, outputs, and constraints. Clarity makes problems smaller.
• Sketch a tiny example by hand. No code. Just logic.
• Split the task into subproblems. Solve one tiny piece at a time.
• Test early and often. Get feedback quickly so you do not drift.

Do it scared. Do it unsure. The second time you face a similar problem, you will be shocked how much easier it feels.

2) Learn from feedback - free coaching if you can take it

Feedback is spicy. It stings. You will survive. Ask for it from friends, mentors, or even random people who seem helpful. If you have nowhere to go, hop into my Discord. We will gladly give you feedback on anything. The key is to listen for the idea, not the tone. You do not have to accept every suggestion. But you should try to understand the reason behind it.

• When someone comments on your code, ask what pattern they would use instead and why.
• When you get a PR review, identify the most common issue and practice just that for a week.
• When you hear something you do not like, sit on it for a day, then revisit with a calmer brain.
• Keep a change log of fixes you adopted. Watch how your style improves over time.

Feedback highlights blind spots. It saves you from repeating the same mistake on three different projects. That is time travel for developers.

3) Persistence - treat setbacks as temporary, not permanent

Persistence is not endless grinding with no brain. It is strategic stubbornness. When you hit a wall, do not assume the wall is forever. Try another angle, another resource, another day. My go-to routine when stuck looks like this:

• 20 more minutes of focused effort with a timer. No distractions.
• Rubber duck the problem out loud. Yes, to an actual duck if you have one.
• Search one precise error message and read the top 2 or 3 discussions all the way through.
• Take a 10 minute break. Hydrate. Walk. Touch grass. Come back with fresh eyes.
• Ask a specific question in a forum or chat with exact error output and what you already tried.

This rhythm builds resilience. You will learn to trust that stuck is temporary. The more you see yourself get through it, the less scary it becomes.

4) Practice deliberately - not just more, but better

Deliberate practice is focused practice. You pick a target, you define the reps, you get feedback, you repeat. Do not just flail at random tutorials. Here is a simple weekly plan you can try:

• Pick one topic for the week - for example, object oriented basics, arrays and hash maps, recursion, or layout in CSS.
• Set a clear outcome - I can implement a simple LRU cache, or I can explain closure with my own example.
• Block 3 sessions of 45 to 60 minutes. Phone away. Tabs closed.
• Do 2 small exercises from scratch without copy paste. Struggle on purpose. Then review the model solution.
• End the week with one tiny project that uses the idea in a new context.
• Write a 5 bullet recap of what you learned, what confused you, and what you will practice next.

That kind of practice compounds. It is boring in the coolest way because the results sneak up on you.

Extra real talk for beginners

What if I am starting late

You are not late. You are on your timeline. Tech is full of people who pivoted from music, teaching, retail, you name it. The age you start is less important than whether you keep showing up. A two year streak of consistent practice beats a decade of wishful thinking. Stop asking if it is too late and start asking what you are going to ship by Friday.

Do I need to be good at math

You need enough math to understand the problems you want to solve. If you are building websites, you do not need to re-derive calculus proofs in your kitchen. If you are doing graphics, ML, or crypto, you will need more. Either way, you can learn it as you go. Math fear is mostly leftover school trauma. You are older now. You can learn at your pace with resources that do not make you feel dumb.

What if I hate failing

Me too. Everyone does. Here is the cheat code: reframe failing as sampling. Every error teaches you something you would not have learned by guessing correctly. Sampling more errors is how you map the terrain faster. The point is not to crave failure. The point is to stop making it mean you are doomed.

How do I track progress so I do not feel stuck

• Keep a tiny win log with 3 bullets per day. What problem did you solve. What concept got clearer. What question did you ask.
• Save diff snapshots of your code from month 1, month 3, month 6. Read them later and laugh at your old self with kindness.
• Set skill checkpoints like I can build CRUD without Googling every line, or I can explain big O of my solution.
• Ship something visible every month - a script, a page, a tiny app, an automation for your life.

My honest origin story - messy, slow, and worth it

Let me circle back to the early days. I started college thinking I should already be good. That belief wrecked my focus. When I finally accepted that slow is still progress, everything improved. I started to treat assignments like a gym - not a report card machine. I experimented even after I had a working answer. Sometimes the experiment made the code worse. Good. I learned why the original was better. Sometimes the experiment unlocked a cleaner path I would have missed. Also good.

I took free courses when I needed a new angle. I built side projects that were embarrassingly small so I could finish them and get reps. I asked annoying questions to people who were kind enough to answer. I learned to take a breath when feedback felt like an attack. The slow grind worked. My skills improved. Concepts clicked that I once called impossible. I could finally follow the reasoning behind algorithms that used to look like spells. I got less fragile and more curious. And when interviews rejected me, I learned to extract the lesson and keep moving.

The 5 minute debugging habit that changed everything

Here is a tiny tactic that saved me countless hours. Any time you hit a bug, spend exactly 5 minutes writing a quick plan before thrashing:

• What did I expect to happen. Be specific.
• What happened instead. Copy the exact message or symptom.
• What changed recently. Code, config, data, environment.
• What is the smallest repro I can make. Aim for 10 lines if possible.
• What is one assumption I can test right now. Then test it.

That habit turns chaos into structure. It is the difference between blindly poking your app and performing a little science experiment. Also, if you ask for help with those notes, the internet will actually want to help you because you did the work.

Your next steps - small, clear, and today

• Pick one hard thing you have been avoiding. Commit 30 minutes to it today. Break it into 3 mini steps and do step 1.
• Ask for feedback on one piece of code. Thank the person. Apply one suggestion. Ship the change.
• Set up a 3 day practice streak. Same time each day. Phone in another room.
• Write a tiny win log for a week. See how your mood changes when you notice progress.
• Grab an interactive lesson that fits your gap.

The core reminder I wish someone tattooed on my brain

If there is one thing you remember from this article, it is this: success in programming is not about intelligence. It is about perseverance. Your tolerance for being bad at something while you get better is the biggest predictor of whether you stick around long enough to be good. The mind shift is simple to describe and not easy to do. But once you change it, it upgrades almost everything you try. You will become a better learner. A tougher problem solver. And honestly, a more chill human.

You do not need to be a genius to code. Embrace challenges. Seek feedback. Stay persistent. Practice deliberately. That is the whole playbook. I will see you in the next one.