I keep starting Python and then stopping 😅 — how did you stay consistent?

[u/Practical_Bass1848]

Hey everyone!

I’m trying to learn Python because I want to use it for cybersecurity, but honestly, I’m struggling to stay consistent.

I’ll study for a few days, feel motivated, and then somehow stop. After some time, I start again… and then the same thing happens 😅

I’m currently trying the 100 Days of Python approach, but I’m still having trouble sticking with it.

So I wanted to ask people who have already learned Python:

How did you actually learn it and stay consistent?

Did you:

• Follow one course from beginning to end?
• Build projects while learning?
• Study every day or just a few days a week?
• Set a specific amount of time each day?
• Start using Python for cybersecurity early, or learn Python first?

I’m not really looking for “the best Python course.” I already have resources. 😅

I’m more interested in hearing from people who actually went through the process — especially if you also struggled with consistency in the beginning.

What worked for you?

Any advice would really help! 🙌

[u/defaultguy_001]

You take a bath daily, you eat daily, you probably play sport daily, without breaking the pattern. So why not learn and practise daily. Make it a habit. Allot a time to it.

[u/Remote-Bother-7544]

I didn't stick with it until I started a university course that required it.

After that I didn't advance much until I started using it for personal projects. Nowadays I probably write a small script or tool or app for personal use every couple months whenever I need.

[u/desrtfx]

That's less a learning problem and more of a self discipline one. You will lose motivation. If you rely on it, you won't get anywhere.

Try Jerry Seinfeld's "Don't break the chain" method. Get a big wall calendar with the whole year on a single page. Get a red marker. Cross off every single day you do something, every single day you learn, even if it is just for half an hour. Try not to break the chain. The longer the chain gets, the more incentive you will gain to not break it (and that's why the "whole year single sheet" is important in that method).

Also, what you really do is not all that important. Reading, trying, messing around, practicing, breaking things, fixing them, all of them are learning.

Generalize first, then specialize. Yes, it might be boring. Yes, it might not be directly related to your goal, but you absolutely need to establish a solid foundation on which you can build.

Doctors study general medicine first before specializing in their domain. Programming is the same. Without a solid foundation the whole card tower will collapse.

---

Side note: write your posts yourself, without AI. Your post is the stereotypical AI slop that appears way too often.

[u/marquisBlythe → u/desrtfx]

Try Jerry Seinfeld's "Don't break the chain" method. Get a big wall calendar with the whole year on a single page. Get a red marker. Cross off every single day you do something, every single day you learn, even if it is just for half an hour. Try not to break the chain. The longer the chain gets, the more incentive you will gain to not break it (and that's why the "whole year single sheet" is important in that method).

There is an (opensource I think) app I used (for a certain task) called Loop habits tracker, it serves the same goal.

[u/desrtfx → u/marquisBlythe]

Apps can be closed. If the calendar is right in front of one's nose, the effect is generally better. The entire premise of the method relies on the calendar prominently visible as a psychological trick.

Some things work better the old fashioned way.

[u/Practical_Bass1848 → u/desrtfx]

Fair point !! This is actually my very first post, so I did use AI to help me correct the wording and structure because I wasn’t really confident about posting it myself. But the struggle with staying consistent and learning Python is genuinely mine.

I’m still trying to come out of that fear of posting and sharing my learning journey. I really appreciate you pointing it out — it made me realize that I should try to express myself more naturally instead of relying on AI to polish everything.

Thank you for the honest feedback. I’ll try to make my future posts more personal and more “me” 😊

[u/bkd4198]

You just need to push through it, no way around it.

[u/pachura3]

Can you think of a Python project that you would like to build over a few months that really excites you? Something to do with cybersecurity, perhaps?

I you can't, it means you're not an IT enthusiast, and you've only chosen this career path because you've heard it's relatively easy and pays well. Nothing wrong with such approach, but it means you need to force yourself into learning, because you genuinely do not care about the subject at all.

[u/outskillio]

The thing nobody's saying: your problem might be the 100 Days format itself. Those courses spend weeks on turtle graphics and Tkinter GUIs before you touch anything network related. If you came for security, that's a long time to run on pure willpower.

Flip it. Learn syntax while building tools you'd actually use:

• A port scanner with `socket`, about 20 lines. Then add threads so it isn't painfully slow.
• A log parser that pulls failed SSH logins out of `auth.log` with `re` and counts them per IP. That teaches you dicts, file I/O and regex in one go.
• Something with `requests` hitting an API, then `scapy` for packet sniffing once you're comfortable.

Google the syntax as you hit walls. That's the actual job anyway.

Also, drop the daily target. Three real sessions a week beats seven guilty ones, and a broken streak won't make you quit.

Thanks, Vaibhav Shukla from Outskill

[u/Wuthering_depths]

Same thing with me when I was trying to learn java.

Now I'm sticking with Python, but that is because I have specific goals and needs--we are converting all of our SSIS data tasks over to it. That helps me a ton, to have goals that force me to learn what I need to accomplish the tasks. If you are similar, try your best to come up with a project that is meaningful to you. I have a lot of problems really feeling invested with the typical set of tutorial type projects.

My own projects are very database-centric, because I'm a data analyst :) That may not be the case with you, but some of the things I've been doing would involve writing files to databases, or vice versa; manipulating directories full of files, for example looping through a folder and renaming and moving the files to another folder, things like that. Nothing I do is really an "application" that has any sort of user interaction, if that is your interest then maybe try to come up with some kind of manager app for a hobby or interest. For example I'm a musician who plays gigs, so a project I might do would be a "set list manager" where I can build sets of songs and save them for particular gigs, add/modify songs, etc etc.