Be Bad at Something You Want To Be Good At

Today, another read of something Ferret has written and how it speaks to me.

The Dreadful Necessity Of Imperfection

In this one, Ferret talks about trying something new, in this case a podcast. And his fears that the first ones will be poorly done, with mistakes, imperfections, poor judgement calls... you know, the results of being new. In time, he'll develop patterns, skills, tricks, and better judgement. But the first ones will probably be rough. 

In high school, I remember my daughter sitting in the car next to me, bemoaning the fact that she would probably never be as good at this one thing as one of her friends. Now, the friend only had this one thing that she was really good at (in the context of our conversations, at least). This friend spent all her practice time on this one thing, and was super-good at it. My daughter, on the other hand, had a half-dozen hobbies she was working on, including this thing. And to be honest, she was pretty good at all of them. She was 'good' at all of them. But the friend was 'great' at this one. My daughter couldn't see being 'great'. I asked her if she was interested in giving up all of her other hobbies to focus on that one thing, and if maybe then she could be 'great' at it. She admitted that maybe she wasn't interested in paying that price for greatness; all of her hobbies were important to her, not just that one.

I am a 'Former Gifted Kid', with all the attendant baggage that comes with it. I was always pretty good at most things I picked up, almost instantly. I didn't have to work hard just to be 'okay' at things; they came naturally. I played piano, studied martial arts, sang, and other stuff. And sometimes I veered toward 'great' in these things; but just with a minimal effort, I got to start off at 'good'. There were things I would have to start at 'poor' with, like, say, dancing. I'm not a natural dancer; I'm in the 'poor but can follow directions if they are repeated enough times' category. But being 'poor' at it was hard, so I quit quickly, or even just didn't start on those things. I avoided the things that would take significant effort just to keep up with others. Or I started the things, and then quit when it demanded effort. For instance, I wrote a lot of poetry, briefly. I enjoyed it, but it was bad poetry. So I stopped writing, until many years later.

So we have two paths to follow when it comes to developing skills.

You can focus on the things you're Good at, and get Really Good at them. You can even focus this down to just one or two things you're good at, and maybe even get Great at them. This is probably the safe path, where you're almost guaranteed some measure of success. If you enjoy the things that you're good at, you are incredibly lucky and have the opportunity to really do great.

But what if you enjoy something you're terrible at? You can give up and go back to the things you're good at, or you can decide to buckle down and work at it, knowing that you're Not Good at it. Do the thing over and over, study on how to do it better, take lessons, watch videos, try a hundred ways to be bad at it. Here's the thing - you'll get better. If you don't quit, you will look up and someday be Okay at this thing. You're still not on the level of the people who are naturally Good at it, but you're better than you started off. And then you make the decision again - quit or keep going?

Continuing to work at something that isn't easy is scary - what if you fail? It's hard work, especially when there's some other thing that's so much easier to do. But if you want it, you can do it. You have to accept that your results might not be as good as you want - not yet. But they'll get there. 

Look at some artist you admire. Look at their current efforts, then go back to their early efforts and compare. They didn't start where they are now. For instance, here's Questionable Content's comic #4518 - and here's comic #45 (from 2003) - look at the difference in technique he's developed over the years!

Ferret is still working on his podcasts - and I best his latest are better than his first ones, though he's only six episodes in. My daughter is still pursuing a bunch of different skills that she's Really Good at, without focusing on one to become 'the best'. I'm a better writer than I was in High School, but I mostly still focus on safer things that I don't have to work so hard on. And I still can't dance. 

Try the New Thing, and be Bad at it, but try it.