I wish people knew how easy it is to get “good” at something. Not great—that takes time—but just good enough to play the game. To have the conversation. To enjoy the process.
Literally anything you enjoy can be learned. Your energy is just directed in the wrong places. You think something will take forever when you’re still bad at it after a few days. But once you overcome this mental hurdle, the world becomes limitless.
Sit with the discomfort for a while. Be bad for a few days. Be really, really bad. Keep going. Keep learning. Eventually, it becomes fun. You get OK. Then you start to realize what kind of potential you actually have.
People somehow think that being bad at something is proof they don’t have potential. As if not being able to do it now means they never will. So they protect what little confidence they have instead of risking it to gain more.
There’s an old wisdom that applies here: if we only ever try to protect what we have, it will dwindle until nothing remains. We must cultivate, not just conserve. If you’re so scared of losing whatever self-worth you’ve tied up in being “good” or “smart” or “talented,” you’ll never take the steps that actually allow you to become those things. You’ll just slowly lose what you have.
Growth comes in those moments of frustration. Both mentally and physically. Why is it that we recognize “no pain, no gain” for physical workouts, but miss that frustration is the mental equivalent? That feeling of confusion, of struggle, of not getting it yet—that’s your mind building new pathways. That discomfort is the sensation of improvement.
Of course you don’t understand yet. Of course you aren’t good at it. Of course it’s frustrating. Did you expect to be blessed with natural talent for everything that interests you? Do you think the greats who came before you were just born that way? Given something unattainable by the rest of us? Because if you actually study them, this is rarely the case. The prodigy-turned-superstar is a far rarer story than the hard worker becoming remarkable.
And this effect compounds over a lifetime. The more you believe you can learn and grow, the more you will. Carol Dweck’s research proves this—people with a “growth mindset” consistently outperform those who believe talent is fixed. A small belief that you can be good at something today helps you become great at something tomorrow. You just have to be willing to be bad first.
The more you embrace this mindset, the more you’ll undertake things that seem hard or impossible. “You know you can just do things, right?” And those skills from past failures? There’s more crossover than you realize. Everything connects. The more I’ve generalized across domains, the more I’ve seen this. It becomes easier to relate what you’ve learned to what you’re learning—to use tools from one area to advance in another.
This isn’t just about acquiring skills—it’s about opening up life itself. Allowing yourself to try and experiment and fail is what exposes you to the deep truths and beauties of this world. This effort spent on being bad is what makes life worth living. It might feel harder than letting Netflix wash over you in the moment, but this engagement is where we’re refueled, reenergized, recharged. Only by truly engaging with the world can we understand its beauty. Only by participating can we feel its magic.
Children understand this intuitively in ways adults forget. Maybe it’s because their egos aren’t tied to performance yet. They haven’t learned that it “should” be. When a child sees something cool, they try it—they imitate without fear. Adults see the same thing and say, “Wow, that person is incredible.” You’re incredible too. You just aren’t willing to give it a shot.
I genuinely believe this combination—the willingness to be bad and the agency to try to improve—is one of the greatest advantages anyone can have. These two qualities are a superpower. Go out there and be terrible at something today. That’s the only path to possibly being great at it tomorrow.
Or you can slowly fade into comfortable mediocrity. What do I know?