Embrace the Suck

practice is the best instructor

I have a terrible but common habit of trying to learn everything about a task before I do it. Before starting the book club, I spent days reading about different writing styles, different software options, and reading hundreds of successful newsletters, articles and book reviews.

Any idea how much of that prepared me for writing the last 160 book club articles?

Almost none of it.

All the learning has come through repetitions. Each article now takes me around 30-45 minutes to write. But when we did books like Sapiens and Clear Thinking, each article was closer to 2 hours. That had to do with the nature of the book, its length, the number of ideas in each chapter, and more.

This is my sixth month running the book club and while I’m still no author, I know I’ve improved dramatically since day 1. And it’s not because I kept studying other book reviewers, or watching YouTube videos on how to run a book club… it’s because I’ve spent hundreds of hours practicing.

“Practice is the best of all instructors”

Moral Sayings of Publius Syrus, 439)

The flip-side is that I knew I was terrible when I started. It took over a hundred days before I stopped being embarrassed by every piece of writing I published. But I knew there was no other way to get better.

I had to suck before I sucked less. Until eventually, hopefully, I will be pretty good. And then, one day, it will be unreasonable for me to not be good at this.

There is no substitute for practice. And before practicing, you will suck. So if you ever want to be good, start practicing now. Embrace the suck.

Question of The Day

What is something you do well today that you sucked at when you started? What did you do to get better?

Your Friend,

Noah BigNerd Sochaczevski