I was sitting on my living room floor last Tuesday, surrounded by what looked like the aftermath of a small explosion in a craft store. There were scraps of blue yarn everywhere, a pair of scissors that definitely wasn’t meant for fabric, and a crochet hook that I’d managed to drop roughly fifteen times in the span of an hour. My goal was simple: make a scarf. Just a long, rectangular, functional piece of clothing. But what I had in my hands looked less like a scarf and more like a very confused, lopsided cobweb.
And for a second, I felt that familiar, hot prickle of frustration. That voice in the back of my head—the one we all have—started whispering that I was wasting my time. It told me I should be doing something “productive” or something I was actually good at. But then, I stopped. I looked at the mess, and I realized something that felt a bit like a weight lifting off my shoulders. I was actually enjoying being terrible at this. I was a beginner again, and honestly? It felt like coming home.
We’ve spent so much of our lives trying to be experts. We’re told to find our niche, to sharpen our skills, to become the person everyone goes to for answers. And that’s fine, I suppose. It pays the bills. But somewhere along the way, we’ve lost the permission to be bad at things. We’ve forgotten the quiet, clumsy magic of starting from zero. And I think that’s a tragedy we don’t talk about nearly enough.
The pressure to be a finished product
It’s everywhere, isn’t it? This weird, unspoken rule that if you aren’t good at something immediately, it’s not worth doing. We look at people who have been practicing their craft for twenty years and we compare our “Day One” to their “Year Twenty.” It’s an unfair fight, yet we let it discourage us before we’ve even bought the supplies.
I think social media has a lot to do with it, though I try not to blame everything on the internet. We see the polished result—the perfectly baked sourdough, the hand-restored dresser, the marathon finish line—but we don’t see the four months of flat bread, the ruined wood stain, or the days someone spent crying because their shins hurt. We only see the “after,” so we feel like failures when we’re stuck in the “before.”
There’s a certain kind of anxiety that comes with being a beginner. It’s the fear of looking foolish. It’s the discomfort of your hands not quite doing what your brain is telling them to do. But if you can push past that first ten minutes of awkwardness, there’s something else waiting for you. There’s a strange, wide-eyed curiosity that you can only have when you don’t know what the rules are yet.
Why our brains need the “Messy Middle”
I’ve noticed that when I’m doing something I’m “good” at—like my actual job—I’m often on autopilot. My brain knows the shortcuts. It knows the pitfalls. It’s efficient, sure, but it’s not exactly *awake*. It’s just executing a program I’ve written over a decade of work.
But when you’re a beginner? Your brain is on fire. Not in the “stressed out” way, but in the “oh, what does this do?” way. You’re noticing the texture of the yarn. You’re feeling the way the light hits the paper. You’re actually present. You have to be, because if you look away for a second, you’ll drop a stitch or miscalculate a measurement.
That “messy middle” phase—the part where you’re trying, failing, and trying again—is where the real life happens. It’s where you learn how you handle frustration. It’s where you realize that a mistake isn’t the end of the world, it’s just a redirection. I’ve learned more about myself from a failed garden than I ever did from a successful one. The failures taught me patience. The successes just taught me that I like tomatoes.
The joy of the low stakes
One of the best things about being a beginner is that nobody expects anything from you. There is no “brand” to maintain. There are no clients waiting for a deliverable. There’s just you and the thing you’re making. If it turns out ugly? Who cares? You can throw it away, or keep it as a trophy of your own bravery. There is a profound freedom in doing something that doesn’t have to “count” for anything.
- You don’t have to monetize it.
- You don’t have to show it to anyone.
- You don’t have to be “good” at it by next week.
- You can quit whenever you want (though I hope you don’t).
Learning to embrace the “Ugly” phase
I have a friend who started painting recently. She’s a high-powered lawyer, very sharp, very precise. She showed me her first few canvases, and they were… well, they were rough. They looked like something a very talented fifth grader might do. And she was beaming. She told me it was the first time in years she’d felt like she could breathe.
She said, “At work, I have to be right. If I’m not right, people lose money or go to jail. But with these paints? I can be completely wrong. I can put purple next to orange and the world doesn’t end.”
We need more of that. We need spaces in our lives where it’s okay to be “wrong.” We spend so much energy curated our lives to look effortless. We edit our photos, we rehearse our jokes, we polish our resumes. But life isn’t effortless. It’s chunky and weird and sometimes it smells like damp wool. Embracing the ugly phase of a new hobby is like giving yourself a giant hug and saying, “You’re allowed to be human today.”
It’s about lowering the bar. Not because you’re lazy, but because the bar was never supposed to be that high in the first place. Who told us we had to be experts at everything we touched? Probably someone who wanted to sell us something.
Practical ways to start being “Bad” at things
If you’re feeling stuck in that expert-trap, here’s my unsolicited advice. Pick something you’ve always wanted to try but were too intimidated to start. Something that has absolutely nothing to do with your career or your “image.”
Maybe it’s pottery. Maybe it’s learning to identify birds in your backyard. Maybe it’s playing the harmonica. Whatever it is, go into it with the explicit intention of being the worst person in the room. If you’re the worst person in the room, you have the most to gain. You have the most room to grow. It’s actually a very powerful position to be in.
Don’t buy the most expensive equipment right away, either. That’s another trap. When we buy the top-of-the-line gear, we’re putting pressure on ourselves to perform. “I bought a three-thousand-dollar camera, so I’d better be a professional photographer by Tuesday.” No. Buy the cheap stuff. Use the scraps. Keep the pressure low. Let the curiosity be the thing that drives you, not the investment.
Finding a community of amateurs
There’s something wonderful about finding other people who are also struggling through the beginning stages. Whether it’s a local class or just a group of friends who agree to try something new together, having that shared vulnerability is a game-changer. You laugh together when things go wrong. You celebrate the tiny victories, like finally getting the hang of a specific knot or remembering a difficult chord. It turns a solitary struggle into a shared adventure.
The perspective of the long game
When I look back at the things I’m actually good at now—writing, cooking, even just being a decent friend—I realize they all started with a long, painful period of being a beginner. I used to write terrible poetry that I thought was profound. I used to burn grilled cheese sandwiches. I used to be incredibly awkward in social situations.
But because I kept going, the “newness” eventually wore off and became “familiarity.” And then familiarity became “competence.” It’s a slow, slow process. It’s like watching a tree grow. You can’t see it happening in the moment, but you wake up one day and realize you have shade. But you don’t get the shade if you don’t plant the seed and tolerate the years when it’s just a skinny little stick in the mud.
I think we’re so focused on the shade that we forget the stick has its own kind of beauty. It’s trying. It’s reaching. It’s alive in a way that a plastic tree never will be. Being a beginner is the ultimate sign of life. It means you haven’t closed yourself off yet. It means you’re still willing to be surprised by the world.
A few parting thoughts
I never did finish that scarf last Tuesday. I ended up pulling the whole thing apart because I realized I’d messed up the very first row. In the past, I might have been annoyed. I might have tossed the yarn in a closet and forgotten about it for a year.
But this time, I just felt the weight of the wool in my hands and started again. The second attempt wasn’t perfect either, but it was better. And even if it wasn’t, the hour I spent doing it was an hour I spent *not* worrying about my email, *not* thinking about the news, and *not* trying to prove my worth to the world. It was just me and a blue string, trying to figure out how to be a person.
So, go find something to be bad at this weekend. Be messy. Be slow. Be hopelessly, wonderfully confused. Your brain will thank you, your soul will feel a little lighter, and who knows? You might just end up with a very lopsided scarf to show for it.
And that, I think, is a much better result than a perfect one anyway.