Well, you threw out a bunch of random thoughts, so here are some in return. Firstly, double-check (no advice as to how!) that you're you're not just suffering

Well, you threw out a bunch of random thoughts, so here are some in return. Firstly, double-check (no advice as to how!) that you're you're not just suffering from Imposters Syndrome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impostor_syndrome You do write some code - are you sure it's not just a matter of insecurity and scale? Secondly, do you really need to code? You've had great jobs doing things for which you receive recognition and praise - perhaps those things are your true calling. But if you really want to code, find a mentor and get an honest opinion. Write something really, really small, and get advice about style and content from people who can code. Finding them is an interesting challenge, but there are a few here who might help. Find something small that you feel will be interesting enough. Perhaps you just mostly suffer from a combination of procrastination and lack of focus. Perhaps you need to learn and work in really small chunks. Perhaps you need to learn by doing, not by watching. So here's a thought: Pick three languages that you've had contact with and in each, write FizzBuzz and post them here. And to prevent you from having the excuse to look it up on the net and getting clues from what you see: Write a program that prints the numbers from 1 to 100, except that if a number is divisible by 3 print "Fizz" instead, if a number is divisible by 5 print "Buzz" instead, and if divisible by both, print "FizzBuzz" instead. Just a thought.