Personal News

Reaching a Crossroads

Almost 6 months since my last blog post! That’s because, like most of us in the UK, I’ve been busy enjoying the freedom of no longer being locked down. Catching up on lost time with family and friends and having long commutes into the office does not leave a huge amount of time for learning to code. Although I am making some progress with learning to code, it is slower than I’d like. I recently decided that I needed to have more time to work on coding courses and to create software projects of my own. This was not going to be easy while working in a job that although I love, requires a lot of my physical and mental energy.

Taking a Risk

After a lot of thought and consideration, and conversations with my husband, I decided to resign from my nursing job. This was by no means an easy decision. I have been nursing for 11 years (including my years working as a student nurse) and have worked within the NHS for 13 years. I have worked hard for my career, am passionate about the NHS and am extremely comfortable in my job. But as they say, nothing exciting ever happens in your comfort zone, and in order to grow, we need to step out of what is comfortable. Of course, there is a chance I could miss my job in the future and want to return to nursing. That is fine! I will keep up my nursing registration for the time being so that I have that option. At least I will know that I tried it. It is better to try something than to spend the rest of your life wondering “what if…?”. I feel excited to try a new challenge but nervous to be leaping into the unknown.

What Next?

I finish my nursing role next month. In the meantime, my commutes to work involve listening to podcasts about coding and I am working hard on my days off to finish the JavaScript and Ruby on Rails courses I have been working through. Once they are finished, I am going to be working on some personal software projects and aiming to build a portfolio. I still have a huge amount to learn but my goal is to work as a freelance software developer so that I can have the flexibility of working remotely and independently.