How to deal with nervousness

I am new here. I have been studying Power BI for like 6 months now , I feel overwhelmed… I have gone through some of the videos, I keep learning and getting more confident but opening the next video brings another concept I don’t know. I feel overwhelmed. I know I have learnt a lot but these videos makes me feel empty or when I check how many more sessions to go

Hi @yumalik30,

My suggestion, take one video at a time and practice that one for a couple of days and then move to the next one.

I know the feeling, I feel over whelmed too sometimes. Even take couple of hours away for awhile.

I’m in the same boat as you are. I’m new to power bi too.

Just take your time, and learn the processes/procedures that is set up in here.

enjoy it :slight_smile:
Keith

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@yumalik30,

Power Bi is very hands on. You can study all you want, but you have to continually practice in order to move forward. I believe firmly in the words of Yoda, “There is no try, only do”!

Keep up the good fight!
Jarrett

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@yumalik30
Everyone felt that way to, the main idea is that try all what you have learned with new dataset and replicate the knowledge gain from all the video you ever watch, most especially, I will recommend you begin to participate in the EDNA DATA CHALLENGE which been organized mostly every two weeks. So Practise make Perfect.

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@yumalik30,

I would venture to say that every single one of us on this forum has felt that same feeling of being overwhelmed by the scope and complexity of this program at one time or another. I certainly have.

I would encourage you not to focus on how much more there is to learn (the answer for all of us is “tons, and it grows with every monthly update”), but instead to focus on how far you’ve already come since you started, and just to keep making some progress every day. Those little victories add up quickly and in a couple of months I guarantee you’ll look back on some of the things that completely confuse you now that will have become second nature to you by then.

Also, rely on this forum for support. @sam.mckay has built an amazingly supportive, friendly, collaborative community here and it’s an invaluable resource for getting you “unstuck” when you hit the inevitable roadblocks that we all do.

Below is a post I made yesterday in response to another member who was feeling similarly overwhelmed. I hope you find it helpful.

Finally, enjoy the journey. This is an amazing program that will enable you to do things you previously couldn’t have imagined doing. You won’t get there overnight, but if you keep plugging away, you will get there.

  • Brian
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To the contributor of this post. Thank you for sharing your experiences around Power BI, please don’t hesitate to add more discussion or add value to wherever you think you possess the experience or knowledge that can help others in our Ecosystem Group. You can also help us in improving the Support forum further by answering the Enterprise DNA Forum User Experience Survey. We appreciate the initiative and your help in this group!

@yumalik30 and @JoaoMonteiro,

I’ve been thinking a lot over the past few weeks about your recent posts about how learning Power BI can feel intimidating at times. We just posted this video on the Enterprise DNA TV Channel last night that provides some strategies for learning and practice in a systematic, incremental way that I think you both (and others. hopefully…) may find quite helpful.

  • Brian
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Focus on the positives! Focus on what you have already accomplished and how much it has helped already. I know when I first started this I did a lot of things the complete and utterly “Wrong” way in my day job, but the output was better and faster than what I usually did via excel, so my bosses were happy. Nobody looked at some report and asked how I did it. It’s not like because I didnt do something the “best” way, they weren’t going to use the report.

I’m going to assume that you dont have a “traditional” programming background (and I’d make that bet for the vast majority of people here, me included! ) PBI is very complex set of tools. DAX, Data modeling, ETL via PowerQuery, User Interface, Security, and the list goes on and on. There is a lot to unpack and digest for sure, but that’s a great thing. Try not to feel empty, try to get excited as what is next!

6 months really isnt all that long. Like I said earlier, you probably arent a traditional programmer. And dont get it wrong, what we do in PBI is definitely programming, dont like anyone tell you otherwise. I’ve had this fight with “traditional” programmers my whole career when it came to excel. Excel would be brushed off as something simple and not a real programming tool. Nevermind the fact that bloated IT departments take months to produce something, which now in PBI we can do in a week/ days / MINUTES! My point here is that you have to look at this as basically going back to school. If you were 6 months into college, would you be upset or whatnot because you didnt know it all yet? Of course not, so try to keep that mindset. Just as long as you are really devoting some time and learning something every day, it will come.

When I first started I kind of had the same mentality, if i could just “get through x… then…”. This type of self-talk is killer. When your internal dialogue is negative (or neutral at best) you will always be in this state of nervousness. I know for me when I changed the dialogue from “get through” to “I get to do…” my view and general feeling changed. Made me feel energized for what is next. Of course there were times where things just didnt make sense and some self-doubt shows up. But instead of giving in to it, I made peace with the fact that the way I figure something in DAX or whatever, might not be the 100% best way to to do it, but so be it. The same thing happens when I used to use excel for everything. I know what I did wasnt the 100% correct way, but you know what, the output was correct and fast and that’s all that mattered.

Sorry for the rant, but at one point I was pretty much in your shoes. So I’d say just keep at it, try to keep a positive attitude, and focus on the positives. This is a great community where you can ask any question. The old adage is true, there are no stupid questions. If something doesnt make sense to you, ask for help! I’'m 2+ years in i’m still trying to keep all this stuff straight. The more time you spend in it, the better. It will all start to click eventually- I promise you that.

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I really appreciate the comments now… Thank you very much. I feel better now

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If it makes you feel better it took me 2 years to understand basic DAX, I first used CALCULATE in 2017 and until 2019 I didn’t really understand what all it does. And now I am able to solve complex scenarios in forums.

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Hi @yumalik30,

My Power BI journey is just 3 months old and I am not a techie, but this is what I try to do

  1. Take one function at a time and understand what it does.
    If you understand the functions , solving complex scenarios are just mix and match of these.

  2. Try visualizing what a function will do and what values will be passed to the outer function.

  3. Practise

Regards,
Harsh Nathani

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@BrianJ @yumalik30

Hi Brien,
First of all, I want to thank the video you posted about the 5 strategies to improve DAX (of course, you can apply them to many things in your life).
Second, I would like to say that I am not such a young guy and have never worked in the IT areas, despite my efforts to change, and my interest in these areas, I never had that chance. My biggest frustration is not having a higher education in any field, especially in IT. I would love to be excellent in any area of ​​knowledge. Since my time is running out, I just want to keep learning for myself and take some pleasure from it.
Since I became a member of eDNA, I behave like a sponge trying to see all the videos and following the learning path that you published.
Finally, I want to thank everyone who helped build this great eDNA community, and with that, I am also referring to all the members who belong to it, not just the founders.

I would like to share with you the following:
Carl Sagan, in his work The Demon-Haunted World: Science like a candle in the dark said: "There are naive questions, tedious questions, poorly formulated questions, questions afterwards inadequate self-criticism But each question is a cry for. To understand the world. such a thing as a stupid question ".

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Amazing video Brian. Great value

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Great thread everyone. It’s super to see such a supportive community being develop here

Sam

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Great. Thanks

Great advice from everyone. This helps other new comers to join the conversation and feel comfortable taking up this journey of learning and mastering Power BI

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@BrianJ Tried to watch your video but I found it very hard to hear. I’m already a bit hard of hearing and even with my PC volume at 100% it is difficult to hear/comprehend.

Is there another place I can find this and hope for a little better result as it looks extremely helpful.

Guy

Turn on the closed captions.

I don’t want to read the video

@GuyJohnson,

I record these videos on a high quality boom mic, and just rechecked the sound level on the video and it seemed more than sufficient (when I cranked the volume up to check, it was like I was yelling at myself…). I suspect it’s limitations on your computer speaker. Have you tried running it through a Bluetooth speaker or headphones?

  • Brian