Because I (like many I guess) learned imperative and OO programming languages first, I found it particularly difficult to learn functional languages, for exampl

Because I (like many I guess) learned imperative and OO programming languages first, I found it particularly difficult to learn functional languages, for example F#. Switching between the 2 paradigms is harder than I anticipated. Although I can do that, I always found myself coming up with something suboptimal in the first attempts. Not to mention the differences/similarities between the syntaxes of the different languages. Doing exercises on Exercism, it has surprised me again and again that other had came up with almost totally different solutions! It was never a problem with other imperative languages but functional languages is a liege of it own. It makes me wonder if I should learn it or come back to the imperative world at all because switching seems detrimental to the learning process. Maybe others here on HN can give some tips how one can manage this process better. Thanks