Courageous Sucking

Merlin Mann writes a lot of great stuff about the day-to-day struggle of doing your best work. This piece is another winner.

I stumbled upon it via Marco Arment’s blog, and the post hit me right away, as most of Merlin’s writing does. Over the past few years, I’ve started a bunch of new hobbies/interests. Hockey, web design, photography (as mentioned in Merlin’s piece), and graphic design are all things that, when I entered college, I had never really tried before but, now, are things I do all the time.

Each time I started a new hobby, I felt same exact fear of sucking that Merlin mentions. Every time. Not the piss-your-pants kind of fear that you might feel if pursued by an angry grizzly bear with teeth bared but rather the gnawing, subtle, ever-present kind that stops you from ever taking the time to really get good at something. The former is definitely worse but the latter is far more insidious.

Getting better at something takes a shitload of work. I think that people often assume that great artists, musicians, athletes, etc. are just naturally gifted. To an extent, it’s probably true. But what people don’t see are the hours-upon-hours that go into nurturing and developing that talent. That’s not to say that any average Joe can turn himself into an elite athlete through hard work (though Dan McLaughlin over at The Dan Plan is trying to do just that). Certainly, though, that same average Joe can, with enough time, become decent at just about anything.

One of the difficult parts is enduring the criticism of others, especially when so much criticism is of the anonymous, internet-troll type.

In Merlin’s words:

Nobody likes feeling like a noob, especially when you’re getting constant pressure on all sides to never stick out in an unflattering way. And, in this godforsaken just-add-Wikipedia era of make-believe insight and instant expertise, it’s natural to start believing you must never suck at anything or admit to knowing less than everything – even when you’re just starting out. Clarinets should never squawk, sketch lines should never be visible, and dictionaries are just big, dumb books of words for cheaters and fancy people. Right?

To steal Merlin’s words again, you have to have the courage to suck. And not just for a few weeks or even a few months. You have to have to courage to suck day after day for, potentially, years until, finally, it hits you: You’re a lot better than you used to be. And that feeling is amazing.

Don’t let the judgement of others stop you from courageously sucking. Do what you do for you and nobody else.

Take pictures if it makes you happy.

Play hockey if it makes you happy.

Paint pictures if it makes you happy.

Write blog posts that nobody will ever read if it makes you happy.

Yeah, at first, you will suck, but, even at your worst, you suck a lot less than the asshole who spends all his time criticizing instead of creating. I guarantee that, if you stick with it, you’ll be a lot better in a year at whatever it is you are trying to do, and that asshole will still suck.

Do what makes you happy, regardless of what other people think.