It could be physiological, such as low testosterone. It could be that your colleagues are incredible jerks, and it is affecting you psychologically. Assuming it

It could be physiological, such as low testosterone. It could be that your colleagues are incredible jerks, and it is affecting you psychologically. Assuming it's just you, there is one thought that may help you : this whole area of having self-confidence or energy or determination: it's not black and white. Rather, it's like temperature : there's below zero, zero, and above zero. The top thing that helps in going from below zero to zero is to stop all the negative self-talk. When I was younger and in a similar place, I found it helped to use this technique from Cognitive Behavioural Therapy which I read about in the book, "Feeling Good" (I think that's what it was called? By someone called Burns, if I remember correctly) : just make a table with 2 columns (it could just be in Word or OneNote). In the left, right down every negative thought you get. "I am useless; I will never understand how template metaprogramming and typeclasses are related as claimed by <colleague X>". On the RHS, you can write an objective rebuttal to this thought. It helps to take the perspective of an outsider, as if the thought on the LHS is from a friend sharing their problems with you. How would you respond? "Well, you know these terms 'template metaprogramming' and 'typeclasses', don't you? How did you get here? That's how you'll get there, too. Step-by-step. I don't see any logical reason why it is impossible. Just because you feel it doesn't mean it's real". And on cue, you will feel an incredible sense of relief, as if a weight has been lifted. Just continue this until you go from below zero to zero. It's just a form of mindfulness meditation, I suppose. Being observant of one's thoughts is very powerful. It's very striking and powerful when you realize that many successful people are just ordinary folks without unnecessary negative self-talk who just worked at it for 10 or 20 years. It can be very enabling and powerful (as long as you don't start counting the days; that's another problem! :-) ) I have a simple question : do you like yourself? Just a little is fine. If you don't, address that first by introspecting on the negative thoughts. The C++ will take care of itself once you free up the energy. :-)