Be a freshman again. And yet Again!
You can start anew at any given moment. Life is just the passage of time and it’s up to you to pass it as you please.”
― Charlotte Eriksson, You’re Doing Just Fine
When we dive into something new we have to be willing to push through that tough beginning part when we are so consciously bad at whatever we are trying.
The past decade I have purposely thrown myself into new situations to learn new things and this concept of being a freshman really helped me.
So many people are proud of things they did once, a long time ago but once they become adults and professionals they are afraid of “looking stupid” or feeling awkward. Guess what! You, and I, and everyone is ignorant of more things than we are competent at. If you are not comfortable being a freshman then you are stuck at whatever level of knowledge you have until you check out. Or you’ll just keep adding micro levels of new information to what you already know or can do. Boring.
People have told me they could Never do improv and just make up conversation. I remind them that they just made up that whole sentence without any prior rehearsal. Others tell me they are incapable of learning a language and I point out they they are doing just fine with English though they didn’t know a word when they were born.
Life has a way of making us freshman anyway. Each new stage of life throws us into things we’ve never done before. Each emergency makes us do things we’ve never done before. Throwing ourselves into the discomfort of conscious incompetence and then working towards some level of competence or even mastery builds those muscles and confidence for when life throw things at us…as this pandemic has illustrated so well. Think about things you can do now that you couldn’t do a year ago. Maybe you mastered video conferencing or have become more of teacher for you kids as they worked at home along side you! What is normal for you now that you hadn’t done a year ago? Congrats!
I’m writing this because I find myself a freshman once again with all the new things I’m learning with the book/podcast/blog project. I was scared to start my book. Scared I couldn’t finish it. Scared no one would like it. I had so much anxiety about the first sessions I recorded my podcast. I prepared the best I could, got the best advice I could find, but eventually the first day of school arrived and I had to just do it. Last week I recorded my 9th episode and I was so thrilled at how much easier it was than the first ones. It’s exciting because something I had never done 2 months ago is something I’m becoming more and more comfortable with. And that, boys and girls, is fun.
We are going to be living in this weird covidy world for a big part of this year. The post-covid world is going to be different. What do you want for yourself in that world. What do you want to be, have, do? Make a list and begin. Now. Enjoy the awkwardness of being really bad at something and enjoy the process of learning. Learing about a subject or diving into just learning more about yourself.
The time will pass either way.
Thanks for reading. Please subscribe to my newsletter if you want to be kept up today of the projects I’m working and have and don’t forget to subscribe to my podcast wherever you like to listen…almost. And don’t forget to check out my book if you haven’t. It’s available in paperback and e-book now. The audio version will be here hopefully late spring!