The Dark Side of Competitive Programming

[@Jormmg]

It's a little surreal that you posted this today because last night I literally didn't get a single hour of sleep obsessing over how I feel like I've completely wasted my 20's because I never tried to challenge myself and how I'm so bad at coding and internalizing algo's and data structs. This is all because I have a very real fear of failure and don't feel like I can truly succeed at anything rigorous right from the start, I realized that I'm in a constant loop of doubting myself and underplaying everything I do and I can't seem to shake it. Thanks for uploading this and I'll try to follow along with the strategies you've talked about.

[@balajik8473]

I am going through a similar thing too

[@sarthakbhatt5661]

@@balajik8473 same here brother

[@stalinsanjeev1231]

same here thanks for the comment

[@YouArePurposefullyChildofGod]

I believe in your greatness bro❤

[@Jormmg]

@@YouArePurposefullyChildofGod Hey thanks for that man! I believe in your greatness too! A little update for anyone still watching this comment section I am now a freelance web developer with 3 clients under contract and have moved to an island country where I pay way less to live than what I earn. Things get better, keep pushing and you'll make it.

[@sangpham1462]

I think the mental aspect is like the most important thing in competitive programming, this is a great video, I do see myself in it. Hope you will release more videos like this

[@totallyoverdosed]

You putting efforts for your thumbnails these days . Appreciate it.

[@ColinGalen]

Yeah, though it can definitely be hard to get inspiration...

[@mistake10449]

@@ColinGalen changing old videos thumbnail too 🙃

[@ColinGalen]

@@mistake10449 I'm just experimenting to see what KZbin will pick up

[@utkarshgupta9858]

Great thumbnail!

[@harshupadhyay4393]

Utkarsh bhaiya orz

[@jasmin_bheda]

Utkarsh bhaiya 🙌🏻🙇

[@amansahu6799]

I cannot begin to express how grateful i am for this video. I thought it was just me, i thought it was my issue, some defect embedded deep into myself that made me think and feel this way. Glad to know it isnt, and grateful to know that I can fix it. I will try to actively put these suggestions to practice, because i have lost too much being negative and the times i have had successes are the times i have believed in myself. Thank you so much.

[@tanishq2766]

What is your codeforces handle?

[@vinesauces4023]

Thanks

[@opclass]

Thank you very much for sharing this. I have been trapped by this negative mentality for almost all my school years. I blame myself really hard for not being great at math. The mentality shift to just treat math as a skill and not tie it back to how smart I am(or how smart I wish to be) is the better alternative. Thank you for sharing your experience, it really helps me find the right way to improve gradually.

[@lynxlaurel6959]

Thank you so much for this video!! I had this experience with competitive math. A few weeks ago, I did not make AIME. For reference, I first made AIME three years ago, so at this point I was gunning for a decent index, if not making the AMO. But I failed, devastatingly and unexpectedly, and it was one of the worst experiences of my life. My mentality for the past two years was something like this: "I'm not part of the math community and my friends keep using these acronyms/inside jokes I can't understand" -> "I can't join the community because I don't have the time for it/my friends will judge me if I post a dumb question on AOPS forums" -> "I can't get good at this/my friends won't respect me if I'm not part of the community." In fact, I'm posting this under an alt account because I'm that scared of judgement. If my friends are reading this, it's not me, trust. This isn't the exact same as the mentality you mentioned, but it also focuses on external things instead of internal. For the past month, I've been constantly questioning why I didn't make AIME. Was it that I didn't wake up at the right time that morning? Was it that I didn't check my mocks fully? Was it external pressure from sexism (I'm a girl)/were my friends actually sexist? After watching your video, though, I realized that it doesn't matter. I didn't make AIME, that's it. Two 75-minute tests don't necessarily reflect my self-growth and learning within the last few years. And most importantly: it's something I can't change. Why should I care about something I can't change? So thank you for your video, genuinely, from my heart. I didn't know that people high up in the oly ranks also felt this toxic mentality, because none of my olympiad acquaintances ever talk about it, even after I obtained entrance into the private groupchats! I thought it was just me. Thank you so much, and if anyone read all the way down here, you're not alone.

[@denjellboone8812]

Nice video Colin. I appreciate your effort to provide a different view on success and failure within brain sports. It is definitely needed.

[@ayushsinha3006]

Thanks for this video. I had also faced this and recently I have tried to change things, solve harder problems and I see change happening which I had previously thought were not my thing. Growth mindset actually helps!

[@sahilsarwar8444]

You know what, I found your channel around 5 6 months back and I have been following it for a while now. I followed a rigorous routine every day to solve problems around 200 300 ratings more than what I am able to solve generally. And I continued that routine for like 9 months, but I didn't see much improvement in my ratings and later I realized that instead of focusing on learning, I was too indulged in just grinding and increasing my ratings, and eventually the joy and fun of solving got converted into just an everyday chore. I broke my 190 odd day streak on codeforces willingly, I took a break for around 20 days, and now I am going back again. But this time I will be focusing on learning, rather than just focusing on increasing my ratings. And I will be following your advice from one of your previous videos to change my strategy. Love this video, and hoping for more. Thanks again for everything you are doing for this community.

[@Vortex-qb2se]

Fine, I'll blame my laziness, doesn't make me hate myself any less but at least it may result in being more productive.

[@Johan-yy9pk]

I needed this video so much, I was preparing for 6 months for IZHO(physics) and completely failed. "blame your strategy, not yourself" line really helped, it's very true, hope I come back stronger

[@scsucksatcoding2400]

Great video! As of today, I haven't been in a programming contest before (still Bronze/Unranked lol), but I think think this advice is pretty universal to all of competitive programming. Just yesterday, I broke a 10 day "streak" of following a tough schedule I set for myself, and I felt pretty disappointed, and I was really losing sight of why I was doing competitive programming. Your video helped me pick myself up, which is super important because today's the start of Thanksgiving break. Thanks for making this!

[@alexandrospouroullis3760]

This was a fantastic idea for a video. I was preparing for the national olympiad (far easier in my country relative to the US) since the beginning of this year, and after making significant progress, I felt well prepared to get past the second round (qualifier for the final round). It came around and I failed dismally -- worse than my 2 peers who didn't prepare at all somehow. I shouldn't have gotten so upset about it, but for me it was proof of my failure as a person and my stupidity -- the exact sort of mentality you've spoken of. I really strongly believe that the most important prerequisite to progress at whatever it may be is to never believe that you're incapable of achieving things or attaching your self-worth to achievement. Thanks for the video. You're spreading a really good message.

[@nandiniloomba]

Thank You for this video. Much needed 😊

[@yosansu]

One of your best videos colin! I could totally relate to this. I am so thankful for this video :) Also, the meme gf meme hit hard q_q

[@ngon-vl9re]

Suggestion: don't fight fire with fire. If you want to change your mentality, meet toxicity with kindness and understanding. Don't believe your self-rejecting thoughts, but don't reject them either. You don't need to fight them, suppress them, or cancel them out. You can just let them be. If this resonates with you or interests you, consider meditation. I've been meditating for over a year now and have seen drastic improvements in my mentality; through this daily practice of acceptance, I've grown to accept myself more.

[@FactsPolice]

I never knew I could find therapy in this part of internet I have a severe anxiety problem and I started doing CP recently. I can confirm this video can be applied to anyone who beats themselves with their thoughts. "And remember you don''t deserve to be attacked by your own harsh thoughts even by your own internal monologue". I will remember that.

[@daem6592]

This is so spot on...Thank you Colin.

[@OkayDoood]

This is a beautiful supplement to the conversation I was having with my therapist, and is very useful for getting me through my coding bootcamp - thank you

[@Goozeeeee]

10:07 “Remember you don’t deserve to be attacked by harsh thoughts, even by your own internal monologue. Nobody gets to talk to you that way, even yourself” Great stuff.

[@chrischauhan7840]

I really needed this, I found this video out of sudden in my recommendation. I been going through this mentality of being dumb though in reality I'm consider as a smart person by my friends. Our thoughts does effects our abilities to perceive ourselves of who we really are, Thanks man your video really helped me.

[@e.m.hasanprince4609]

I am also in fixed mindset category. But from now i will try my best to get rid of it. Thank u so much bro.

[@2link121]

watching your older content and liking this so I can see more! I really appreciate your perspective!

[@prabhattyagi7334]

Mann I just can't tell u, how much u helped me out.. I love u mann... I was literally suffering from depression but now I am able to realize what I was doing

[@justabanob_2]

I needed this, thank you Colin!

[@анонимный-ж1г]

The starting of the self worth and skills/knowledge is such a liberating thought . That I was trapped in that rabbit hole . I wasn't getting out of that mindset. It was such that changed my thinking fundamentally . Thank you.

[@nischayagrawalVlogs]

Colin my man. Thank you !

[@karoldrazek7614]

Thank you very much for this video 🤠

[@Amane_sinAce.]

This was exactly what I wanted to hear

[@ver_nick]

That's really motivating, thank you

[@naveezkhoja9879]

One of your best videos Galen! Thank you for this!

[@abhiii3333]

Thanks Colin, i really needed this ❤

[@4mb127]

For me programming competitions are fun. If they aren't fun, why do them? If you just want to learn programming for a profession, programming contests probably aren't optimal for that.

[@ששש-ח6ע]

thank you man, appreciate this video

[@MiketheCoder]

You are a genius

[@learntechgrow4777]

Teaching others our new right-thinking beliefs helps us solidify and ingrain the our new right thinking beliefs even more! We become what we teach

[@tanhatanven6957]

Best mental health video I ever came across❤

[@shivampaliya9011]

that 2nd point and that graph gave me motivation XD

[@sirvlad9571]

Thanks for the video I acknowledged a lot. What you have said is relatable specially the part of "how the mind can twist achievements and turns them against you. I have an experience at college where sadly the grade of your subjects determines your "intelligent" rather than your efforts which is basically did you study enough to understand the subject? etc.. it is wrong and very toxic and makes a lot of people drop-out fast if they are too sensitive or don't have a growth mindset. I had these thoughts from time and I countered them by Simply ignoring them and repeating to myself that everything can be learnt but the level of efforts could very from one person to another based on their background and previous experiences which is so true. Now that I've watched this video I feel more strong and comfortable with the idea.

[@0xCP]

really helpful, thank you

[@AnkitSingh-lb5ct]

Colin you legend!

[@yogeshdhiman8786]

Within 16 secons of upload... Finally. Great video as always Colin. Only person who talks about real stuff and truely selfless.

[@jamjam3448]

I'm here feeling so bad after spending almost two hours on a leetcode question and can't figure it out

[@m1kr0kosmos]

Thank you so much for making a channel.

[@ronensuperexplainer]

This video is super motivating and calming

[@SteversIO]

This is wonderful. Thank you for sharing. I feel like those of us in computer science and related fields are more introverted and suffer from the bad patterns you've discussed here. So glad you've shared this. Thank you 💯🎉🙏. Self awareness is such a powerful tool.

[@ELarivie]

Very helpful. Great video

[@amdtrsouth9163]

You sound like an old psychotherapist. Just Kidding! "How to handle failures" and "Learn to think abstractedly" are the most important aspects for the beginner in competitive programming. I had to learn these aspects in the hardest possible way. Thanks for uploading this great video. I think, you must make this kind of videos more often. "How to be a 'grand-master' in 7 days" types of videos are very very demoralizing and create a lot of self doubt in the mass; We need to show people "the dark side of CP" so that self starters find hope and understand that CP is not easy, even the most talented ones struggle a lot in the beginning. We must have more videos like these to dispel the self doubts and truly understand that everybody struggles at first and this is okay. Thanks a lot, you kinda became my hero.

[@sababatamanna9226]

Thanks for talking about it!

[@wolfie-1812]

you are one of the few people for whose channel i have turned notifications on :P .. great video, inspirational, as always :)

[@TricoliciSerghei]

Hey man, thank you very much for the video.. I'm 34 and I sometimes forget that we are in charge of how we think, how we frame things and what we do. Thanks for reminding me that and also for some new awesome tips. Wishing you luck with the channel.

[@jiraiyasensei1914]

Thanks for this!

[@balasubramaniam2761]

This is a totally inspiring and great video, thanks for putting it up man. Really appreciate it!

[@broccoli322]

I was lucky to find this channel. This video helps me a lot.

[@ancalagon2785]

This is video is super good!

[@VY-zt3ph]

Yes, you are exactly right. I have wasted 6 years believing that programming was not for me. Now I am going to become a candidate master in codeforces. Although after 1 year.

[@josueramirez7247]

This video was really good. I think for me the common bad mentalities are self-deprecation and also seeking only results. I don’t really code (still in tutorial hell) but I can relate to this video since I was serious about playing online chess and I still have the desire to play competitive chess in real life.

[@allegrarestellidellafratta5124]

you tripped me over with the rate of rate of rate of learning I challenge you to write an example for all of the rates you list

[@montypythooon3662]

just failed my amazon test yesterday, couldn't sleep thanks for this.

[@kampet3438]

Awesome video dude, keep up the great stuff

[@exit-bag]

thanks you this, I have a habit to take it personally when I can't solve a problem

[@basantahlawat5499]

Great video galen.. I am amazed the way you articulated such complex through points which made so much sense.. great video.. would love watch more like these in future 👌❤️

[@adityakajale4403]

Really motivating thank you:)

[@abhishekahlawat6729]

Thanks for your video. I will be starting my journey to red today from the very beginning :)

[@bladekiller2766]

Keep up this good work Colin!

[@yoshikagekira7600]

this will be really helpful in my pursuit of peaceful life. 🙏Thanks

[@krsurrya517]

I really enjoyed watching this video Thank you !!

[@prasadthombare6208]

I am obsessed with your videos and knowledge. 😍👌 your great man💯

[@SJY11]

This was a wake up call. It's amazing how this video is applicable to many areas of our lives. Everything is within our control and our failures don't define us. This inspired me to begin the journey of changing my mindset :) Thank you very much, Colin!

[@realiso]

I thought the exact same thing. The fact that this is so applicable to everything in life is crazy. Super awesome video and mindset to have

[@luisluiscunha]

Great advice. Well done.

[@foreverskeptical1]

wow this is so informative. glad utube suggested this

[@OscarRendon]

Even being a mental sport, less is said about the mental part behind it, nice vid Colin!

[@hitesh6856]

Bro Your videos are always helpful!

[@SurajGaud]

Thanks for this

[@sarwarkhalid6704]

This is better than any motivational video I've seen so far

[@anuragyadav_8572]

I feel like you need to create more videos like this one its really helpful, great insights. Really appreciate it. Do make more videos or I ll keep commenting. haha

[@tudorpagu6369]

This is so inpsiring and insightful. Thanks a lot for this video!

[@Nohax8]

This is awesome, for sure make more of such videos, I would like them to reach more people so they can also build greater mindset and accomplish more things.

[@soumyasaurav8388]

awesome video!

[@singhman_]

Liked, subscribed, and commenting. All of your content is super helpful.

[@namahshrestha3226]

Thank you man.

[@blurr3272]

life saving advice

[@DronadulaTejacsb]

Me : I will change my strategies My Mind : Try to grow long hair and see for improvement

[@hemangshrimali6308]

Amazing video

[@Ms452123]

You're wise beyond your years

[@BODYBUILDERS_AGAINST_FEMINISM]

Great video (:

[@cubit1690]

good talk thank you!!!

[@ajayreddy7043]

Thanks a lot it's helping me!

[@gstvzenit9144]

great video, ty

[@rishabmalhotra6980]

I am writing these down on the front of my notebook.

[@SevenRedSun_s]

Im new and late, but i wil try :D, thanks for the motivations :)

[@omarabdel-ghani9145]

Thank you for this video 🥺🤍

[@Jonas-gm4my]

Damn. I just wanted to say. Thank you ❤️

[@Lamya1111]

thank you. really.

[@irajanjha]

Thank you.

[@tuanvu5161]

great video

[@gickygackers]

Literally top g mindset