The beauty of being a beginner

If you know me, you know I love trying things. This is especially true of physical activity: at any given moment, I have at least five different things I’m actively participating in…often more. 

True to form, I recently started attending a new group weightlifting class — well, new to me. The rest of the group knows each other well and have been attending the class for years. Admittedly, the class isn’t totally out of my wheelhouse, and I already knew some of the people there, but the class itself (their particular dynamics, process, and ways of doing things) was new to me. 

After attending a couple sessions, the coach commended me for putting myself into the mix and learning something new. He observed that I excelled at being a beginner. 

Is there any better compliment than that? 

I thought, “That's so nice.” And then I thought, “That makes sense. Because I have A LOT of experience being a beginner.”

I routinely try new things. To me, variety really IS the spice of life. I don’t have any desire to hold myself back from new experiences, or for that matter, ways of being in the world.

Of course, trying new things means you have to walk into places where you don’t know all the rules, where you’re going to look dumb or awkward at least some of the time, and where you have to put in some effort in order to be decent enough to do the thing. (Let me tell you, the first couple times I tried pole dancing, I felt — and probably looked — as awkward as a newborn baby giraffe. And while I feel comfortable in the boxing gym now, for years my goal wasn’t even to be good, it was just to suck less.)

Fortunately, my insatiable love of variety has given me a lot of experience being a beginner and helped me develop the skill of, well, developing skills. And that opens up a lot of doors. It has granted me and taught me many things… including my appreciation for the experience of improvement itself.

Improving is a beautiful thing! How wonderful is it to get to see improvements, even small ones, in something you’ve worked at? When you put in the effort and it pays off, that is a chef’s kiss moment right there. 🧑🏻‍🍳

This can apply just about anywhere in life, including writing and storytelling. Yet I worry that the act of practice and the art of improving is getting lost, or at least, being undervalued.

There can be so much pressure to be productive, get something accomplished, and/or prove that we’re “good enough” at a thing that we skip over, undervalue, or avoid the beautiful (if sometimes ungraceful) process of practicing and getting better. 

In our rush to produce more, we risk de-skilling ourselves: robbing ourselves of the opportunity to practice, learn, and build skills that make us better. Further, there’s danger in outsourcing our internal barometers of improvement to other people, letting other people’s responses dictate our own understanding of success or growth. 

This line of thinking was a big motivating factor in writing my last newsletter, where I shared my top 10 signs you’re improving as a writer. 

And, that’s why I devoted my latest Coaching with Cam episode on the Storytelling with Heart podcast to this very subject. 

That’s right—after a brief break, the podcast has returned! And in this episode, I’m going even deeper to explore the question of how to know if your writing is improving… and why your writing skills are worth fighting for!

On this episode, I explore: 

➡️ The value of improving in the first place…why sucking at a thing and being a beginner is awesome, and why it’s worth putting in the work to improve your skills

➡️ Why the skill of writing *still matters*, and why you should aim to improve your writing abilities even if you use other services or experts (like me!) to help you do it better

➡️ How to avoid the danger of “de-skilling” yourself — and how to keep building your skills (rather than eroding them)

➡️ Why you shouldn’t rely entirely on audience feedback to know whether your writing is improving

➡️ Top 10 signs your writing is improving…some signs and signals that indicate your work is getting better (regardless of audience response!)

Along the way, you’ll get some great hints and tips about how to improve your writing too!

Check it out here: my website, Spotify, Apple, Google, Amazon, and anywhere else you listen to podcasts.

Meanwhile — keep writing and sharing your thoughts and ideas with the world! You don’t have to be the world’s best writer to make an impact; build on the skills you have and I promise your efforts will pay off.