How To Be a Beginner.

Many people seem to think trying and being a beginner at something is a self-imposed humiliation ritual. And while it may feel like that at times, don't the positives of pursuing something that interests you outweigh the negatives of potentially being judged or failing at something?

When trying a new skill there are two outcomes that can result from your efforts: you either make mistakes, learn, and improve or you make mistakes, learn, and pivot to something else. Regardless you get to learn. The cycle of failing, learning, failing, learning, and so on will repeat and eventually you will improve. The only way to stop learning is to stop trying and putting yourself into the work.

Albert Einstein is famously associated with the quote, "A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new."

Making mistakes and iterating from them is essential to improvement and learning. Failure is not inherently bad; rather failure is what we make of it and what came before it. If you fail a test because you didn't study or give it your best shot, that's on you. However, if you truly gave it your best, or even if you didn't but you realize that in hindsight - you are still presented an opportunity to learn. We should run towards our goals, knowing obstacles are unavoidable, because as Marcus Aurelius said, "The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way." The obstacles are what shape us into the people capable of the thing in the first place.

Many of the skills we try to learn have an exponential learning curve, which simply means there'll be a period of grunt work with seemingly little results at the start which all compounds into a beautiful skill. It is important to go through that period of unglamorous work, and once you achieve what you set out to do, you'll often realize that the most valuable part of the achievement was not the achievement itself, but the way it helped develop you into the person you became.

As a beginner focus on enjoying the process not just the material potential outcomes, because the greatest people at what you'd like to do can attest to the fact that enjoying the ride is the real reward. Know that obstacles and mistakes are certain to come, but consistency and persistence keep you on the path. Getting to the top of the mountain is a by-product of the true reward: who you became during the climb. This is why the people who reach the top just go looking for the next mountain to conquer, becoming a beginner again.