Embarrassment.😳

I think on theoretical level, everyone conceptually understands that you cannot be amazing at everything in the very beginning.

People get it. It makes sense.

You are supposed to suck at something. You can’t possibly be good at everything you do (especially at first).

But knowing it and really being in the moment of ineptitude for others to see and judge is different.

In the moment, it sucks to suck at things.

It’s embarrassing.

But it shouldn’t be. It should be a normalized part of the process.

I wanted to share a recent instance that I’m not exactly proud of but at the time thankful I “overcame”.

The fact that I didn’t actually do anything special or profoundly productive is not lost on me but I thought it was worth celebrating because I did not remove myself from the uncomfortable situation, which meant I was pushing beyond my comfort zone.

I stayed in the moment of ineptitude. As sucky as that can be.

Now, productivity and efficiency are natural second-level or third-level considerations to aspire for. When you have some basic understanding of what to do, the path to doing it better is easier to seek or find.

But what do you do before that step? When you are figuring out anything and everything?

For me, this was woodworking.

I had never done woodworking before, but really wanted to pursue a craft that allowed me to via my own two hands, create something for myself.

I signed up for a woodworking class but was told by my future teacher that I could attend drop-in sessions before the class started to practice basic concepts.

So here I am, showing up to a woodworking drop-in session with no actual project, having held and used a saw to cut a handful of cuts and expected to make use of 2.5 hours productively.

Furthermore, there were 6 other people who were competent, making creative, beautiful pieces of furniture with their hands.

I spent about 20 minutes fumbling through my things, trying to look like I knew what I needed. I tried to check my phone like I was being distracted or had other things that consumed my time and that was why I wasn’t jumping into the craft immediately like a productive worker.

It was an embarrassing 20 minutes of time where I felt lost, judged, unproductive, inept, incompetent , and any other negative feeling you could think of.

I just wanted to go home; I just wanted to say that maybe today isn’t a good day and I should come back when the place is quieter.

I was so embarrassed.

But...how badly did I want to learn?

How badly did I want to grow?

And I think that single thought made me stay.

I knew I wanted to be accepted, I wanted to be better, and I wanted to commit my time towards this.

Sometimes, it is hard to connect being productive with taking a single step forward, but a single step forward is still progress.

“Rivers know this: there is no hurry. We shall get there some day.”

―A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

I am proud to say I stayed until the end of the drop-in session. It was definitely an uncomfortable 2.5 hours.

I didn’t do too much from an objective standpoint.

But I stayed,

I tried,

I chatted with people

and I got a little better.

I still suck relative to other people, but I improved compared with myself a couple hours earlier.

And sometimes, even that is a huge win.

I don’t think there was a huge revolutionary unlock for me. Instead, I think the thing that I took away from it, was that this was the worst I was going to be. And I managed to stay. And it should get better with each and every subsequent visit.

I think this relief that I survived the worst I’d feel about it minimizes the anxiety I feel about the whole situation.

In turn, I can now focus on the positive growth, the development and the skill acquisition.