When you say you can’t write, or you have a “writer’s block”, what is it about? Have you caught yourself saying “I’m bad at sales”, or “I’m not a leader, I can’t sing, dance, code, draw or paint, play piano, keep in touch with friends or I can’t cook”?
These are all skills and habits. In many, you might have talents or genuine interest that make things feel easier and more natural to you than to others. However, as many studies show, even the world class athletes, piano players, keynote speakers aren’t born that way, they’re made. Forged through relentless practice.
How does something look when you try it for the first time? Or the 10th time? Is it perfect? Flawless? World class?
That one person you consider a good leader, were they born like that? Serena Williams, was her serve like that the first times she tried tennis? Gordon Ramsey, has his cooking looked like that from the first time he tried it? Or even after the 50th time?
When as toddlers we were learning to walk and we were crawling and falling on our butts, did we feel shame? When drawing pages and pages of stick figures and unrecognisable forms, did we feel ashamed of them not being “flawless” or “perfect”?
At some point, we started to consider practice as failure and to judge ourselves. “I can’t” and “writer’s block” become avoidance strategies that steal us the possibility to get better at something. To box ourselves into not trying long enough is to cement ourselves into mediocrity.
“There’s no such thing as writer’s block. There’s simply a fear of bad writing. Do enough bad writing and some good writing is bound to show up.” – Seth Godin
You say you can’t write? Show me your 100 pages of bad writing.
You say you can’t learn to play piano? Show me the hours of bad piano playing.
You’re bad at selling? Tell me about the first 100 bad sales calls and meetings you’ve had.
Unless you have a long line of bad work to show, you don’t get to say you can’t or that you’re bad at something.
Whatever it is, you can get better at it. What’s the smallest step you could take? Take it and get the reps in. Piles of bad drawings. Tens or hundreds of pages of bad writing. Hours of bad piano playing. The first awkward 100 sales calls or presentations.
There’s joy and pleasure in progress. Before saying you can’t, ask yourself: have I put in the work? Have I given myself the chance to fall on my butt 100 times?
Leave a Reply