Are you sabotaging your coding career with lines like this?
"Oh it doesn't matter, I'm just playing at the moment"
This is a sentence that gets my attention, and not for good reasons. When people say this it's usually not after discussing something that would actually be considered "play". No, it tends to be after mentioning something actually quite serious and important like investing, learning to code, starting to apply for jobs.
Describing your efforts in any of the above areas as "playing" is jarring to me and leads me to follow up with:
"What do you mean?"
At this point they usually get a little uncomfortable and say something like:
"Well it's ok if I don't hear back from recruiters because I am just playing about before doing it properly in the future"
Or some version of that.
Let me translate what they really mean:
"I'm trying a new thing, I don't really know anything about it because learning about how to do it properly is boring and uncomfortable and I think there is a reasonable chance that I may fail. As a result I am making out like it's not that important to me and that I am almost expecting it to fail because then I won't look or feel as stupid as if I conveyed to you that I really hope this works. I am pre-emptively admitting defeat so that the emotional fall I feel, should this fail, won't hurt as much and I can say "I didn't really expect anything from this, I was just playing" "
Basically, they are setting themselves up for failure and absolving themselves of any real responsibility for that failure at the same time. Quite the mental gymnastics.
Instead what they should be saying:
"I'm learning to code and starting to apply for jobs. It's hard going and I'm not sure how it will pan out but I'm really keen to learn everything I can about this process and I'm really confident I can make it work. There's a chance that it's going to take a few attempts and that I might fail in the short term but I can take all of those learnings and redouble my efforts until I reach my goal"
I don't know about you but I'd rather bet on the second person than the first. No matter the odds or the size of the challenge they are tackling.