Do Things You’re Bad At
If there’s anything I’ve mastered during my life, it’s the art of being a beginner. Every novice chapter I’ve entered has come with its fair share of frustration, confusion, and humility. But also fun, aliveness, and joy.
When I’m in the midst of those frustrating moments, I catch myself thinking “Why do I keep doing this to myself?!”
But the truth is — I’m not doing it to myself. I’m doing it for myself.
I’m doing it because I love learning. I love the process of getting better at something that was completely unknown to me at some point. It enriches my life and gives me a kind of fulfillment that only comes from being stretched beyond what I already know.
I love giving myself the chance to try new things my younger self only dreamed of. Being a beginner is a gift to my younger self who didn’t have the opportunities I have now.
The parts I’d rather skip through.
For me, the hardest part isn’t getting started. In the beginning, the stakes are low and there are fewer expectations.
The hardest part is the middle— the point where I start thinking: “I should be good at this by now.”
This is usually when the weight of my own expectations starts to press down. When I’m not entertained by the novelty but not yet comforted by competence. The messy middle is where most of us want to quit, but it’s also where real growth lives and when showing up matters most.
What helps in these phases is simply bringing awareness to the pressure we place on ourselves, the timelines we invent, and the rules we silently follow. Holding our insecurities and fears with compassion is enough to soften the inner judge—enough to remember that it’s not a sign of failure to be in the middle. It’s a sign of becoming.
You don’t need to be confident, you need to be interested.
I’m not gonna lie, learning something new boosts my confidence. It feels good to stick to something that once seemed hard and confusing. It feels even better to master it.
But nobody needs confidence in order to begin. In fact, wanting to be confident ahead of time can be a crutch and an excuse to never even try. I see confidence as a byproduct of competence—of staying in something long enough to find our footing.
Confidence can’t be forced into existence by skipping the challenging parts that make it possible. It comes from moving through them and facing them head-on. From staying present with the discomfort long enough to build real skill and real trust in ourselves.
All that is to say—you don’t need to be confident about something new you want to try, but you need to be interested. Here are a few questions to help you lean into it:
What genuinely sparks my curiosity, even if it also makes me feel unsure or unprepared?
If confidence weren’t required, what small step toward this new thing would I feel willing to take today?
What might I discover about myself if I allowed interest—not certainty—to guide me forward?
If it’s worth doing—do it badly.
People often want the ease and confidence of an expert without having to endure the slow, messy process of becoming one.
But doing something well can only come from doing it unskillfully at first. And that desire to skip the beginning often keeps us from ever starting, from ever finding out what we might be capable of.
That part of us that wants to hurry up and call ourselves “experts” is often the very thing that gets in the way of becoming one. The antidote is deceptively simple: keep showing up for the awkward, excruciatingly clumsy phases. Keep doing it badly.
This isn’t about gritting your teeth and forcing your way through something. It’s about welcoming all parts of the learning process because it makes life more colorful and interesting.
As someone who finds meaning and joy in learning, my vote is to continue doing things you’re bad at.
I hope to be a beginner at something for the rest of my life, because that would mean I’m still learning and enriching my days. And as Annie Dillard said: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.”