A Guide to Getting Comfortable with Being Bad at New Things
From the peak of expertise to the valley of the new.
Most people don’t avoid new challenges because they hate learning. They avoid them because they hate how it makes them *feel*: foolish, clumsy, and exposed.
We stick to what we know to protect our reputation, but this fear of looking foolish is how we get stuck. The cost of standing still is far higher than the temporary discomfort of being a beginner.
The most critical step is a radical one: you must accept that you will be bad at anything new you try. And that's okay.
The Annihilated Book Draft
97 points of critique. A feeling of total failure.
(Hover to reveal the lesson)
The brutal feedback wasn't a judgment. It was a roadmap to a much better book.
The Chaos of Code
Blank stares at error messages. Total confusion.
(Hover to reveal the lesson)
Giving yourself permission to suck is the first step to understanding.
Growth hurts. It feels like failure. But inside that harsh criticism is a plan for something much better.
Click the crumpled feedback on the left to see how to reframe the sting and find the path forward.
This feeling isn't just in your head; it's a well-documented psychological phenomenon. Understanding the science can help you disarm its power.
This is the mental stress from holding two conflicting beliefs: "I am a competent, skilled person" and "I am failing at this new task." Your brain craves consistency, so it flags this conflict as a major problem, leading to feelings of frustration and self-doubt.
While often associated with overconfidence in novices, the Dunning-Kruger effect has a flip side. True experts often underestimate how long it takes for others to learn. When you become your own "other," you apply this same impatience to yourself, forgetting the years it took to build your original expertise.
Feeling "dumb" is the sensation of your brain physically rewiring itself. Forging new neural pathways is energy-intensive and slow. The frustration you feel is the friction of construction. Your brain is not broken; it's building.
You're in good company. Many of history's most successful people embraced being a beginner long after they were experts.
After conquering basketball, his foray into baseball was widely seen as a failure. He embraced the grind of the minor leagues, a humbling experience for a global icon.
She was a national-level figure skater and a senior editor at Vogue before deciding, at age 40, to become a fashion designer. She started from scratch in a new industry.
He left a lucrative, high-status job in finance to start an "online bookstore" in his garage, a move many considered insane at the time. He traded expertise for a beginner's dream.
She didn't learn to cook until she was in her late 30s, enrolling in the famous Le Cordon Bleu culinary school where she was much older than her peers and initially struggled with the basics.
If you want to grow, you must be willing to break a few things—starting with your own ego. The journey isn't pretty, but it's worth it.
Start Bad → Feel Foolish → Break Things → Get Better.
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