Coding, mountains, and mental health

Almost two years ago, I abandoned a traditional career in tech (analytics, product, business operations) to build a journaling app. I thought I just had to learn how to code, but I quickly realized there was even more I had to learn about myself. This is a story about building an app, dealing with inner demons, and the mindset I've adopted to overcome adversity.

A made for Twitter story

In October 2020, I started building the Seasons Journaling iOS app. To do so, I would have to learn how to code, the latest of several attempts I’ve made over the years. Back in 2013, I spent a year studying and following along with Michael Hartl’s Ruby on Rails Tutorial. In 2015, shifting my attention to app development, I discovered Meng To’s Design+Code. Shortly thereafter, I committed myself to watching lectures from Stanford’s well respected and freely available CS193p course. Each time, despite my best efforts, I was left feeling helpless when it came to actually building something from the ground up.

I had reason to believe this time would be different. For one thing, there was a specific product I wanted to build. A couple of friends and I had recently worked on a project for a Covid-19 hackathon. The fact that we could repurpose a lot of the backend from that project, along with a number of other influences, naturally led us in the direction of building a journaling app. Second, a friend of mine who is an experienced engineer, helped me get up and running and wrote many of the initial API endpoints that I could reference and learn from. He’s also been a vital resource and sounding board when I’ve needed it the most. Third, a career spent working in tech as a business analyst, product manager, and business operations director at various companies left me feeling more jaded than ever. A particularly bad experience at my last job left a sour taste in my mouth. My desperation (and determination) to break free from the corporate world and live on my own terms had never been greater.

In 5 months, I was able to release a barebones version of Seasons Journaling into the App Store that offered users the ability to write journal entries and form group journals. At the time of this writing, a year since its initial release, Seasons Journaling supports written, photo, and audio posts, rich text editing, date selection, keyword search, fast scrolling, self-written affirmation notifications, calendar scheduling, Face ID / passcode lock, email verification login/logout, and in-app-purchases in the form of customization options and a subscription offer to unlock our nascent premium experience. The idea of being able to build these features and the level of confidence I have to even try would have been hard to imagine when I first started. In recent months, I’ve done more and more to market the app, as well as share experiences with other founders, entrepreneurs, and builders. I’m not nearly where I want to be, but I feel like I’m on my way.

Entering the darkness

This probably seems like a fairly respectable and perhaps familiar story, but it wouldn’t be complete nor authentic without mentioning how much I struggled to get here. When I started coding I had a huge chip on my shoulder. I wasn’t going to accept failure, so I pushed myself to the limit. There was so much I wanted to do, and it was so hard to do anything. When I’d get stuck, which happened with great regularity, I obsessively tried to get unstuck. Leaving things unfinished was agonizing and unbearable, so I wouldn’t allow myself to stop until I was absolutely fried. I kept this up for a couple of months, but it didn’t take long for me to completely burn out. I remember feeling sick from the stress, and before I knew it, I found myself having a hard time getting out of bed and losing the motivation to do the simplest of things. I stopped working immediately and tried to rest, thinking that all I needed was a good night’s sleep, but each morning I’d wake up feeling the exact same way. It was scary and frustrating, and it would soon get worse. I spiraled downwards. I started recalling every mistake and regret I’ve ever made or had in my life. Painful memories that I thought were buried in the past came back to haunt me, and for a several day period I was trapped in a nightmare based on my own life. I hated myself, I felt like a failure, and I felt hopeless.

The following year brought more challenges. Amidst pandemic isolation, heart-wrenching family issues, and trying to build an app and start a business, I struggled to restore my mental health. Each time I picked myself up and moved forward I would find myself back in the same dark place a few days, weeks, or months later. I stayed fairly productive, and coding got easier, but there were days and weeks where simply existing felt exhausting. I was bombarded with negative thoughts and painful memories. Even on my good days I still felt weighed down by anxiety, stress, and despair. Falling asleep became difficult, and I’d often wake up in a panic. Alcohol and weed didn’t help the mornings, but they got me through the nights. I tried healthier remedies too. I exercised, got outside, journaled (in my own app), reached out to friends, family, and went to therapy. These things helped keep me afloat, but I was still gasping for air.

Finding inspiration

Early this year I watched a mountaineering documentary called 14 Peaks. The film documents Nepalese climber, Nims Purja, as he attempts to climb all 14 of the world’s 8,000 meter peaks in seven months. As you can imagine, to accomplish a feat like this requires an incredible amount of self-belief, positivity, hard work, and a deep sense of purpose. Watching the story unfold, it doesn’t take long to realize that Nims fully embodies these qualities. Set against the backdrop of the world’s tallest mountains, the film is filled with inspiring achievements, heroic efforts, and powerful messages on living a meaningful life. I absolutely loved it, and would go on to watch the movie a couple dozen more times. Later, I’d re-watch a number of other climbing movies and binge listened-to podcast interviews with my favorite outdoor athletes.

The same ideas and themes kept emerging - mindset, discipline, purpose, resilience, managing risk and fear, being in the moment, as well as deeper questions about life and death. I couldn’t help relate these stories to my own backpacking trips and what I look for in those experiences, but I was surprised with the number of parallels I could draw to my experience learning to code, building a business, and the personal struggles I had been dealing with. Sometimes, just taking the next step is excruciating. Sometimes, it might take you a day to move an inch. Sometimes, you need the discipline to cut your losses and live to “climb” another day. To find ways to motivate yourself, manage self-doubt and criticism, to deal with haters and fakers, and to persevere through adversity, over and over again. To cope with fear and pain. This is the real work. The things that make all other things possible. Those were the battles that I had been fighting in my mind every day, and I realized that I had been losing those battles for far too long.

Without thinking too much about it, I started to go to war with myself. I pushed myself harder than I ever have at the gym. I spent entire days hiking. I built and launched a flurry of new features into the app. When the negative thoughts ran through my head, they were met with an intense and focused rage. Probably not the healthiest response, but an empowering one nonetheless. I pushed harder and harder until I had nothing left in the tank. I might have burned out again, but the hard work slowly started to feel really good. Life was by no means perfect. All my problems still existed, but this was better than the alternative. Prior to this self-induced mania, I was exhausted and depressed. Now, I was exhausted and content.

A renewed mindset

Embracing difficult challenges. I’ve come to believe that this is the subtle difference between burning out from work (or life) and being energized by it. Life can be tragic. It’s not always easy, enjoyable, or fair, but I’m reminded that it’s not supposed to be. Like the mountains, it is humbling and unforgiving, but what it offers is an opportunity to find out what you are made of. There is strength in being able to suffer and endure, but to act intentionally, in the face of fear, uncertainty, and doubt, forces you into the present moment and makes you feel alive. To do this consistently, over a long period of time, is not only the key to reaching the summit of your proverbial mountain, but it is also a deeply profound and personal experience that most will never know.

It’s hard to understand if you haven’t experienced it, and what people don’t understand, they often fear and criticize. How a person lives their life is a choice that they have to make for themselves. I’ve chosen to crave the work that comes along with the challenges I’m faced with, regardless of if they are of my choosing or not. I’ve decided that I don’t want it to be easy. I don’t want any shortcuts. I want to feel it. I want to savor it. It’s a mindset that brings meaning to my life, helps stave off negativity, and gives me the edge I need to move forward in the face of adversity.

I hope this helps you reflect on your mindset and mental health as you take on the big challenges in your life. If you’d like to connect, please don’t hesitate to reach out. You can find me on Twitter and Seasons Journaling in the app store.

I’ll see you in the mountains.