Why You’re Not Learning Enough by Just Watching Tutorials

Watching tutorials is easy. Building your project is where the real work begins!

One of the most common things I hear from junior developers and career changers I mentor is this:

“I’ve finished many courses… but still don’t feel ready.”

They’re stuck in what many call tutorial hell, a cycle of endlessly watching videos without starting something independently.

I’ve been there too.

In my journey as a developer, I often asked people who learned before me:
“If you could go back, what would you do differently while learning?”

Almost all said the same thing: “I watched too many videos and didn’t start building my projects early enough.”

And they were right.

Building your project doesn’t just mean coding. It means making mistakes. Lots of them. And learning not to repeat them next time.
That’s what real experience looks like.

I remember when I first started, I wanted to try different ideas. I didn’t want to build the same projects everyone else was doing.

While writing this blog post, I looked back at some of my early projects. One of them was Easy Life, a web app that…