The First Iteration: Embarrassing Yourself

Many people waste time waiting for the perfect situation to come to them, wanting to be good at something without putting in the grind and the hours required to achieve the level of competency they desire. People tend to want a magic pill for things, a silver bullet. They want to skip to the end and reap the rewards without paying the tolls along the road.

In this article I’m going to talk about things we want to do, not necessarily our jobs or responsibilities but things beyond that, personal goals with regards to hobbies or interests.

Maybe you want to run a marathon. Maybe you want to learn to play an instrument. Maybe you want to learn a new language. Maybe you want to take-up martial arts, gardening, golf, tennis etc.

For this goal to be applicable you must genuinely want to do this thing, rather than feel you should. For example, I have no interest whatsoever in learning to play the harmonica. I do not want to be good at the harmonica. I want to be fluent in German, so I practice that every day. I can hold a basic conversation and understand at least the gist of most written text but I’m still at the point where a natural German speaker would probably laugh at my grammar and pronunciation. Who cares. I started. I’m on the path. I’m further along than I was.

If you want to lose weight, to the point where you feel guilt and regret every night if you didn’t go for a run or exercise, then that would indicate this is something you do genuinely want. You should pursue this.

If you say “you’d love to lose weight” but are happy tucking into a greasy takeaway and a few beers three nights a week without a smidgeon of guilt or regret, you obviously don’t want to lose weight, and I’d honestly encourage you to keep doing what you’re doing — it makes you happy.

Once you have found your want, something that is extremely probable is that you are going to be awful at this thing when you try it for the first time. You might feel embarrassed. Good. Embarrass yourself frequently, daily if possible. That’s important. That takes the fear out of it. That builds confidence. Practice will build competence. There is no such thing as natural talent. No one is going to be competent the first time. Competence in anything comes from consistent hard work.

Everyone has to be bad at something before they can be the best, everyone who ever made it to the top of a ladder started out at the very bottom.

To borrow from an old adage “Rome wasn’t built in a day”. Rome was built, first and foremost, by laying that first brick in the ground. Put yourself in that moment right after that first brick is laid. You’ve set out to build the greatest city in history of the world, and you have laid one brick. Yeah this is a pretty pathetic city so far. If anyone saw your ‘city’ consisting of one brick you’d probably feel embarrassed. But it doesn’t matter. You’re on the path. You want to build a city and you’re doing it. Is there anything more fulfilling? That’s what it is all about.

If there is something you want to do, I’d really encourage you to go for it. Put the first iteration out there for the world to see. Let it be awful. Embarrass yourself. Own it. Then improve on that. Then improve again.

Fear of failure is a great inhibitor and is something which holds a lot of people back from truly being themselves. Likewise, regret is one of the most detrimental feelings for the human mind to experience. We can attack and eliminate both by simply ‘doing the thing we want to do’. If you’ve failed — you’ve failed. There’s nothing more to be afraid of. Regret? You tried it. You’ve tried your best. What is there to regret?

So if you want to learn a new language, start by learning one new word or phrase today. If you want to run a marathon later this year or next year, run 2 kilometers this evening after work. If you want to learn to play the guitar (and you have one lying around) pick it up and strum a D-chord.

Get on the path. Just get on. Every second you spend wishing you were on it is time wasted.

Once you have identified something you want to do, your choices are quite simple:

Option A: Don’t try it. Don’t embarrass yourself. Protect your ego and your image. Nothing ventured, nothing lost. But trust me, if there is something you genuinely want to do — you won’t be happy unless you try and it will always eat away at you.

Option B: Try. Suck. Try again. Suck again. Try again. Suck a little less. Try again. Suck a little less. So on, so forth.

If you try it and genuinely don’t enjoy it, don’t derive any meaningful purpose or value from it, who cares? Stop. You’ve tried. You never have to wonder again. It wasn’t a waste. The only wasted time is time spent regretting, wishing you had done something you wanted.

So my advice is find that thing you’ve always wanted to try, always wished you were good at and try it today. Embarrass yourself the first time and go from there.