When I was in college and just starting to write music of my own, a professor at the university gave me some sage advice. “Usually when people start writing they write a bunch of bad charts. And It’s best just to get that out of the way as soon as possible.” Lol. I love that! But what the heck did he mean? Was he telling me I was going to be a bad composer!? Don’t try because you’re going to write a bunch of bad music??
This particular professor did have a bit of a dry sense of humor, but I love this quote so much because there are two great lessons here.
First, and this can be applied to just about anything you’ll want to learn in life, when you start off, YOU’RE GOING TO BE BAD. There, I said it. I’ve saved you the suspense! If you’ve been contemplating learning something new you may be wondering how it’ll go when you start. But whether you’re learning to write music, take photos, cook, make things out of clay, lay by the bay, deadlift, or speak in front of a crowd, you are just starting to learn in this field and will perform accordingly. You’re not going to suddenly be good at said endeavor just because you want to be good or because you read a book on it.
What’s maybe not so clear in this is that IT’S OKAY. You’re a beginner! Why would you expect anything different and put pressure on yourself to reach a certain standard when you’ve never tried your hand at this? Everyone is bad when they start. Even those who seem to have a natural knack for something will do things imperfectly or less efficiently than what’s optimal. So, what about the second lesson?
The other part of this is that the way to get good at something is to DO that thing. There is no going around it, over it, below it, across it, or through a wormhole in space to end up on the other side magically transformed into an expert! The process can be difficult, humbling for sure, and slower than we want. However, the only way to go from terrible to great at something (or even just “pretty good”) is to go THROUGH it. Go through the transformative process of getting iteratively better, little by little, day by day.
Many times when I was younger, say in high school or college, I would be hesitant to try things because I was fearful of looking inept or silly in front of my peers, strangers, or even just that little voice in my head that told me “You’re not THAT kind of person. You don’t do THAT thing.” Hell, maybe the voice was right. I didn’t do THAT thing. Until I did!
By actually starting light and putting weight on the bar and performing the movement, paying special attention to form and how your body moves through space, you get stronger and improve in the exercise. By actually putting pen to paper and writing hundreds or thousands of words, editing, changing the order of things, tweaking this phrase or that, you improve your skill as a writer. Not by only thinking of how nice it will be “one day” when you start or by reading another book about it. These things are distractions that if you let them, will paralyze you and keep you in the dreaming phase instead of the gettin’ shit done phase.
Just start! Sticking with the writing analogy for a second, Robert Graves once said “There is no such thing as good writing. Only good rewriting”. You can’t tweak and improve a thing if you never attempted it in the first place. You can’t refine a block of wood that hasn’t first been shaped into a chair, cutting board, or what have you. Just start! Write your first post, take a bunch of bad photos, take an in-person class (post #quarantinelife), start with bodyweight exercises!
Just DO the thing. Do the thing you’re interested in, the thing you think you might enjoy, the thing your mind keeps returning to. And then do it again the next day. And the next and the next. Before long, you will have real-world experience in your chosen subject, identify as someone who does THAT thing, and be well on your way to being good at it. Just don’t try to skip out on the process. You will get there if you stay consistent and most importantly, START. What’s that thing you’ve been meaning to try?