In Jan ‘13 I made a promise. 2013 was going to be the year I acquire some technical nous. Developers had been making me jealous. I wanted the magic ability to turn ideas into reality overnight. Over the course of that year I completed Code First Girls, built a number of websites and launched an iOS app.

Now I've I’ve decided to go the whole hog and devote 84 days to learning to code. Next month I'm starting at Makers Academy, an intensive Ruby web development bootcamp. I've finished the prep material so I asked one of the MA teachers what else I could do. His answer surprised me:

’Work on your mindset. The biggest thing that people struggle with here is themselves. If you can treat it like a game and remain positive, you will do well”.

The same day I came across a TED talk that also talks about how positivity enhances your ability to learn new things! Apparently you can train yourself to become more optimistic which will in turn cause your brain to work more effectively.

In his TED talk Shawn Achor suggests the following;

1. Create a gratitude list and add to it each day

   This teaches your brain to scan the world for the positive first.

2. Journal a positive experience that happened to you at the end of every day

   Doing that will cause your brain to relive it.

3. Exercise

   Endorphins

4. Meditate

   This practice teaches how to focus singularly on the task at hand (and reduces the likelihood of being distracted by unhelpful thoughts).

5. Perform a weekly random act of kindness

   You can cause "ripples of positivity” to spread through the environment around you.

"Your brain at positive performs significantly better than at negative, neutral or stressed… When you are positive your brain is flooded with dopamine and this turns on learning centres in your brain. You become more intelligent, more creative, you have more energy ,you are faster and more accurate"

I'm sold.