How being terrible at things can improve your life.
It's good to be bad.
If you’ve ever undertaken a new endeavor as an adult (sporting or otherwise) you probably realize how intimidating it can be. We, as grown-ups, often fear appearing unskilled or amateurish. We become so set in our ways that we are uncomfortable being the novice.
We want to seem confident and in control all the time, which is not entirely a bad thing. Being new, being out of our element creates discomfort, and it is a reasonable goal, in my opinion, to be comfortable.
But constant comfort leads to stagnation.
Sometimes we need to move outside of this zone and in to new territory. It can be awkward and terrifying, but that push is what allows us to test our limits, realize our strengths and weaknesses, and, ultimately, clarify what is important to us.
In Zen Buddhism there is a term, Shosin, which means “beginner’s mind.” It is suggested that one should approach all things with an open and eager mind, free from preconceptions.
If we reduce our circle of experience to only those things with which we are familiar, we lose that mindset. Things become stale and unimpressive, and we begin to rely on the feeling of success and seek only affirmation.
Failure is crucial to progress. If we can lessen or discard fear of failure and habituate ourselves to failure, we open ourselves to new realms of experience. This is comfort with awkwardness, unfamiliarity, and failure is very beneficial when approaching physical pursuits, when it is so easy to be paralyzed by fear:
What if I can’t do it?
What if I look stupid?
What if I hurt myself??
While these concerns are reasonable, they can become overwhelming. We use our adult logic to rationalize ourselves out of doing something new and let that experience fly by.
Once we let it go of that concern, the world opens to us: experience is essential to living and new experience pushes us to new places that we might not go otherwise, helping us refine what we truly want out of our lives.
To be open to failure is to be open to new experiences, new ways of being, seeing, and living in the world. This helps us see outside the box, to perceive life in different ways.
So go out there and try something new. You don’t need to be the best at it, or even good. In fact, all the better if you suck.
Go suck at something.
It’s going to be great.