It’s OK To Be Bad At Something

Have you ever started something new, only to give up soon because you were no good at it?

I know I have, and it doesn’t even feel good at the time – but when you look back at your feeble attempt and think about it later on, it feels worse.

Because common sense should tell us that nobody gets anything right first time.

Think back to when you were a child – how long did it take you to do things you take for granted now, like walking and talking?

Why do we spend over ten years in formal education?

Why do many jobs require you to go through training first?

It’s because when you first try something new, you probably suck at it – and that’s OK.

Of course, it’s not OK to still suck at something that you should reasonably be expected to know how to do, but that’s different.

Because what I’m talking about here is the learning process – the first time you try to do a waltz on the dance floor, the first time you try to make a vase on your potter’s wheel, the first time you try to speak a foreign language.

Somehow, though, our expectations of how difficult those new activities can be, and how long we may have to spend l learning them, can be hugely out of sync with reality.

There is a saying, which you may well have seen, that says a master has failed more times than a novice has tried.

And this may be why there are so few masters – because many people give up well before they reach that level.

Some give up after one or two tries, some persevere longer until they convince themselves that they’re never going to be any good at whatever it is (a conclusion often reached with no real evidence), and some continue until they become proficient, at which point they stop.

So in order to learn successfully, there are a few key qualities that you need, including:

• Commitment. You need to be committed to learning the new skill, which includes setting aside time (and maybe a place) to do it. If you tell yourself you’ll squeeze in a few minutes here and there when you can, it is likely you’ll never make it to the end (e.g. of a training course).
• Confidence. You need to have trust in yourself that you are capable of doing what you want – even if it takes time.
• Flexibility. You may start off with a plan on how to become proficient in a new skill, but you might find that, along the way, you need to revise that plan, maybe frequently. If you are not prepared to do that, you may find yourself giving up at the first bump in the road.
• Patience. Without this, you will not last the course.
• Realistic Expectations. If you expect results too soon, you will be disappointed when you don’t achieve them, and this will suck your motivation out of you.
• Reason. Most people learn something new because they have a good reason to do so. This might be because they want to work in a certain industry that requires specific skills first, or it might be because you want to be able to speak a foreign language for family reasons (e.g. maybe your partner’s parents don’t speak your native language). If your reason is good enough, you’ll have a better chance of success, but if you’re not truly sure why you’re trying something new, you may well give up on it.
• Rewards. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you will reward yourself (e.g. with a meal out or a trip to the mall) when you make progress, although that is often a good strategy. But it does, at the very least, mean that you should congratulate yourself on each step forward you make, acknowledging that you are getting there, even if the progress is slow and steady. If you don’t do either of these things, you may find your motivation decreases over time.

Personally, I can think of all sorts of new skills I’ve tried to learn over the past 40 years or so – and given up on.

But there are also those where I persevered, and while I wouldn’t consider myself a master of any of them, I certainly was able to keep going until I became proficient.

As one example, when I was about 16, I decided I wanted to learn how to perform magic (of the conjuring variety – not black magic).

I had always been a clumsy child, as my parents frequently told me (and maybe that is part of the problem, of course), so they were surprised when I was able to show them a few tricks.

I began with learning card tricks, as many magicians do, and I was fortunate to have a mentor who was accomplished in that area, He also recommended one of the classic books of card magic, and I actually did work my way through the entire book, over the course of a couple of years or so, learning each new technique as well as tricks that used those techniques.

However, when it came to learning to perform magic using coins, I suffered the exact problems being talked about here:

• I was no good at it, at first, because coin magic is more (to me, at least) technically difficult.
• I wasn’t really sure why I was doing it, and with hindsight suspect it was because I thought it was something I ought to learn, rather than something I positively wanted to learn.
• I didn’t have somebody to help me, and never bothered to seek such a teacher out.
• I didn’t have the same confidence with coins that I did with cards, for reasons I don’t understand.
• I didn’t really have a plan for learning, in the necessary incremental steps.

There are probably other reasons too why I never progressed with coin magic as I know I could have done, but I think you get the point.

But supposing I’d told myself that it was OK to be bad at it?

Supposing I’d not only told myself it was OK, but also that it should be expected?

Of course, other factors might still contribute to giving up (e.g. not devoting time to it), but the lack of motivation that comes from expecting too much too soon would not be one of them.

Conclusion

Learning anything new can be daunting, regardless of whether it’s something you have to learn (e.g. for your job) or something you want to learn (e.g. a musical instrument), but being discouraged because you don’t take to something immediately is not a good reason for quitting.

When you have your first child, you may well think you suck at being a parent, because, as they say, children don’t come with instruction manuals, but you cannot give up on them. You have to keep pressing forward, learning new tips and tricks on the fly to make your role as a mother or father easier.

So tell yourself, “It’s OK to be bad” – at first, and keep going. Assuming it’s something you want or need to be able to do, then if you push on regardless, you will, one day, look back and be glad you persevered.

Additional Resources

These are suggestions for those who wish to delve deeper into any of the above:

1. How To Be Yourself