My son’s cursive writing is often hard to read. And my daughter’s drawing of a unicorn is not easy to decipher. My attempt at a tongue and groove curved ceiling won’t win any awards.

I used to be very good at algebra. But then I stopped doing equations. I ran a sub-two hour half-marathon once. But then I stopped running and now would struggle to run a mile.

Everything you are good at today, you were once bad at it. And most things we are good at today, we do regularly. Repetitively.

This is true for you, but also for celebrated experts, athletes, artists, engineers, designers, and so on.

And yet we fear doing something for the first time because we’re scared it won’t go well or perfectly. Of course it won’t. It’s the first time. It’s not meant to go well. We walk because we fell a lot first and then tried repeatedly again and again. And then kept doing it everyday.

There is no shortcut to being a good or expert writer, a flutist, a painter, a carpenter, a coder, a surgeon bypassing being bad one first.

The fastest way though is to practice everyday.

So here’s to firsts. Here’s to being bad at something. Congrats! You’re human. You’re like the rest of us. And now the work begins. Try again today. And tomorrow. And the day after that, and after that, and after that.

Practice your craft. The choice is up to you.

Photo by Avrielle Suleiman