You open LeetCode. Your palms sweat. You read a “Medium” problem and feel like you’re staring at hieroglyphics. Everyone in the discussion section solved it in 12 minutes using some clever bitwise operation you’ve never seen. You close the tab and tell yourself you’ll try again tomorrow.

Tomorrow never comes.

Here’s the thing: LeetCode isn’t hard because the problems are impossibly difficult. It’s hard because it makes you feel like an imposter from the first second. It’s like being handed professional Photoshop when you’ve only used Instagram filters, or being asked to pilot a fighter jet when you’ve only played Flight Simulator. The tool itself becomes the barrier.

And that performance anxiety? It’s not just in your head. It’s systematically destroying your chances of landing a job.

The Photoshop Problem

Think about the first time you opened Photoshop. Hundreds of buttons, panels, adjustment layers, masks, filters you’d never heard of. You wanted to edit a simple photo, but the interface made you feel unqualified to even try. Most people never get past that initial overwhelm. They bounce to Canva or stick with their phone’s built-in editor.

Midjourney does the opposite. Type words, get pictures. No manual, no tutorial, no certification needed. The barrier to entry is so low that millions of people who never considered themselves “creative” are now generating art daily.

LeetCode is Photoshop. You need to know the syntax, the patterns, the unspoken rules. There’s no hand-holding, no gradual onboarding. You’re thrown into the deep end with a “Good luck!” and expected to swim. When you inevitably struggle with a “Medium” problem that assumes you’ve already mastered binary search, hash tables, and sliding windows, you don’t think “this platform has poor UX.” You think “I’m not smart enough for this.”

That feeling? That’s what’s keeping you from getting hired. Not your actual coding ability.

The Power vs. Ease Trap

Most interview prep falls into what I call the “power trap.” Everyone tells you to learn the hard stuff first. Master dynamic programming. Understand graph theory. Memorize Dijkstra’s algorithm. The logic goes: if you can solve the hardest problems, the easy ones will be trivial.

Except it doesn’t work that way for most people.

Learning works on momentum. You need small wins to build confidence. You need to internalize patterns before you can recognize them in complex problems. You need to feel capable before you can tackle incapability.

Imagine trying to learn piano by starting with Rachmaninoff. Sure, if you somehow powered through it, you’d technically be able to play anything simpler. But most people would quit after the first week. They’d never experience the joy of playing a complete song, never build the finger memory, never develop the confidence that comes from gradual mastery.

The “power-first” approach to LeetCode prep has the same problem. You spend weeks feeling stupid, making no visible progress, wondering if you’re cut out for this industry. Your friends are landing jobs while you’re still trying to understand why your dynamic programming solution times out.

The alternative is the “ease-first” approach. Start so easy it feels trivial. Build momentum. Pattern recognition comes from repetition, not from staring at editorial solutions you barely understand.

The Nano Banana Method

There’s a concept in habit formation called the “nano habit.” Want to start flossing? Don’t commit to flossing all your teeth. Commit to flossing one tooth. It sounds ridiculous, but it works because the barrier is so low that you have no excuse not to do it. And once you start, you usually do more than just one tooth.

The same principle applies to LeetCode. I call it the Nano Banana approach, and it has three rules:

Start with problems that require zero complex data structures. I’m talking about the Easy problems that are just loops and conditionals. “Find the maximum number in an array.” “Count the vowels in a string.” Problems that feel almost insultingly simple. Do ten of these. Don’t move on until they’re instant. You should be able to solve them without thinking, like tying your shoes.

Why? Because you’re not learning algorithms yet. You’re learning to be comfortable writing code under pressure. You’re building the muscle memory of translating a problem into working code. You’re proving to yourself that you can do this.

Use Python, not C++. This one triggers people, but hear me out. C++ developers love to point out that C++ teaches you “how computers really work” and makes you a “better programmer.” Maybe. But when you’re already drowning in algorithm anxiety, adding syntax anxiety is like trying to learn swimming while also learning to hold your breath for five minutes.

Python lets you think about the problem, not the implementation. You want to reverse a string? s[::-1]. Done. No iterators, no char arrays, no segmentation faults. The goal isn’t to become a Python developer. The goal is to remove every possible source of friction so you can focus entirely on problem-solving patterns.

Once you’re comfortable with the patterns, port your solutions to whatever language your target companies use. You’ll find the translation is straightforward because you actually understand the logic now.

Focus on pattern recognition, not memorization. After you’ve done 20-30 Easy problems, something interesting happens. You start seeing patterns. “Oh, this is just another two-pointer problem.” “This is the same sliding window technique from yesterday.” Your brain starts categorizing problems automatically.

This is the point where you can start gradually increasing difficulty. But you’re not memorizing solutions anymore. You’re recognizing patterns and applying techniques you’ve internalized. It feels completely different. Instead of anxiety, you feel curiosity. Instead of “I have no idea where to start,” you think “I wonder if the approach from that similar problem would work here.”

Why This Actually Gets You Hired

Here’s what nobody tells you about technical interviews: your interviewer isn’t just evaluating your algorithm knowledge. They’re evaluating how you think under pressure, how you communicate your approach, and whether you give up when you hit a wall.

The candidate who can smoothly talk through an Easy problem, explain their reasoning clearly, and write clean code without hesitation often beats the candidate who awkwardly stumbles through a Medium problem they’ve half-memorized.

Why? Because the first candidate demonstrates mastery. They’re comfortable. They can think and code simultaneously. They can handle the pressure. The second candidate demonstrates anxiety. They’re second-guessing themselves. They can’t explain why they’re doing what they’re doing because they don’t really understand it themselves.

The Nano Banana approach builds the former skillset. You’re not trying to impress anyone with hard problems. You’re building unshakeable fundamentals. You’re programming your brain to associate coding interviews with competence, not anxiety.

The 30-Day Challenge

If you’re reading this and thinking “okay, but I need to prep fast,” here’s a realistic 30-day plan:

Days 1-7: Do three Easy array problems per day. No googling solutions. Struggle through them. If you’re truly stuck after 30 minutes, look at the solution, understand it completely, then solve it again from scratch the next day.

Days 8-14: Add Easy string and hash table problems to the mix. You should be getting faster. If an Easy problem takes more than 15 minutes, you’re moving too fast. Go back.

Days 15-21: Start mixing in the easiest Medium problems, but only ones that use the patterns you’ve already mastered. Two-pointers, sliding window, simple dynamic programming. Keep doing Easy problems too. Aim for 70% Easy, 30% Medium.

Days 22-30: Now you can tackle true Medium problems. But here’s the key: you’re not learning new patterns anymore. You’re applying existing patterns to more complex scenarios. This should feel challenging but not impossible.

At the end of 30 days, you won’t have solved 300 problems. You’ll have solved maybe 100. But you’ll understand those 100 completely. You’ll be able to solve variations without looking anything up. And in an actual interview, you’ll be the calm, confident candidate who talks through their approach clearly instead of the nervous person who can’t remember if they’re supposed to use BFS or DFS.

The Real Secret

The dirty secret of LeetCode is that it’s not really testing your intelligence. It’s testing your tolerance for discomfort and your ability to build systems that gradually reduce that discomfort. The people who succeed aren’t necessarily smarter. They’re just better at managing their anxiety and building momentum through small wins.

So stop trying to impress yourself with hard problems. Stop comparing yourself to the person who solved it in 8 minutes using bitwise operations. Start with problems so easy they feel trivial, and build from there.

Because the difference between feeling stupid and feeling capable is just a few dozen Easy problems. And the difference between not getting hired and landing your dream job might be as simple as choosing ease over power.

Your interviewer isn’t looking for a genius who knows every algorithm. They’re looking for someone who can think clearly under pressure and solve problems systematically. The Nano Banana approach builds exactly that.

Start small. Build momentum. Trust the process.

And maybe, just maybe, the next time you open LeetCode, your palms won’t sweat quite as much.