I remember that when I was starting out at noise.cash I usually repeat the phrase "baby steps still get us to where we want to go" or something similar.
I keep repeating the term baby steps because I think of progress in terms of how a baby grows.
Thank you so much to my ever supportive sponsors.Why a baby?
Well, a baby is something who looks so fragile in the beginning. Some people are even afraid to touch them.
Some cannot imagine how they can grow into kids. A baby start off with a clean slate. They do not know how to do anything. Even simple things are out of their reach.
But slowly they open their eyes and they learn. They encounter many failures. Yet they still continue to do it again and again until they finally got it.
Maybe it is a first syllable of a word or a name. Soon it will be a full word or name. Then a phrase. After a while it will be a full sentence.
Or maybe it is being able to move from one place to another. At first crawling is difficult for them. But then they learn how to do it and now they are happily crawling everywhere. Soon they will take their first steps. They may stumble but you will still see them walking cheerfully after getting up.
You see, everyone of us started with baby steps. We do not just get born and started to walk and to talk like an adult. No, we struggled to even do that "simple" thing.
I think about it a lot
How we as a child mever got tired of trying to do some simple skills. How we never think of it as a waste of efforts just because we stumble or mispronounce a word.
But as we grow older, instead of being more confident to try new things we are afraid of doing it.
No longer are we cheerfully seeing life in the naive eyes of a child, we see the world as a scary place where we can make no mistakes.
The children are afraid to make mistake because their parents will scold them. They keep beating themselves up over it until they no longer find joy in studying. They stick to what should be on the tests and never went beyond that.
This same children will grow to the same teenagers who always excel in academics. Their test scores are high and consistent. We may even see their parents braghing about them. But these students are beating themselves up for every little failure.
They do not want to try new skills because they are afraid of being a beginner or letting others see that they are not always good at everything.
They keep doing the same things over and over until they make no mistake and just stick to it.
Then college came and that is sometimes when reality knocks them down. They meet so many amazing people who may not always excel at academics but are good at many things. They meet people with a lot of good friends. They meet people with a lot of stories to tell.
They face lessons far harder than that of those in the past. They started to feel the fear creeping in. The fear of making a single mistake. This fear keeps them immbolized. They find it hard to breathe and to just do what they have been doing all this time. Sometimes they might even realize at this point that this is not the program that they like but it will be too hard to admit since it would feel like giving up.
So they would push every worries and realozations to the back and just move forward with no direction. Then they would wonder what went wrong when they can never seem to fill the emptiness in them.
Let's go back to baby steps
If we would just allow ourselves to be a beginner, I think that we will be able to be much happier. If we would just try put the things we want and syick with it for at least a month then we will not feel as much as failure as we believed ourselves to be.
If we would just not compare our progress to someone who has been doing it for years then we would find no energy to envy others.
Why bother comparing what you can do with others' skills?
Think of everyone in terms of children and babies. Those who have started a bit earlier than you will be the older children. Most times they will not even bother glancing in your mistakes, but there will be some kind ones that will give you pointers. And you as a beginner, you can think of yourself as a baby just starting to learn how to walk.
I have seen many older children assist babies to learn how to walk. So think of it that way. The ones you think more capable than you are the ones who will be willing to lend you a helping hand to get your bearings straight.
Instead of feeling jealous about what they can do, see them as a guide.
And always remember that they were once in your place too. They did not start of as being able to do things very well immediately. They most likely encountered the same problems that you are experiencing. This is why it is important to learn from others because you will be able to know of the pitfalls they fell to, and how they got out of it without falling victim to the same pitfall.
Baby steps will get you to where you want to be, if you would only just be patient with your progress. Trust in yourself. Believe that you will get there. Do not be distracted by other things. Do not be tempted to just stop and fall back into your comfortable zone. If you never push yourself, if you never commit mistakes then can you truly say that you are growing? Or are you contented to stay in the small box that your past self had carved for them?
If you want to have a new friend to talk to about random things, feel free to reach out to me:
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There's nothing wrong in being a beginner. People always start from scratch at everything. We always encounter failures at our endeavors at some point. Let us not compare ourselves to other who are already excellent because they also started from being a beginner