You Will Always Be Bad at “The Thing” Before You are Good at “The Thing”

This message is primarily for my fellow neurodivergent folks who struggle with picking up a new skill or hobby due to learning curves.

You will always be bad at “the thing” before you are good at “the thing”.

There are times when we will attempt something new. Sometimes, we find we excel at this new thing naturally. Other times, we will have to work harder than we estimated we would need to reach the result that we expect of ourselves.

This discrepancy between the amount of effort we thought we’d need to exert to be “good” at “the thing” and the actual amount of effort we need to be “good” at “the thing” can cause us great distress. Giving up when we don’t perform as we’d hoped is common among neurodivergent folks.

How do we overcome this?

You will need to consciously remind yourself that you must be bad at something before you can be good at it. There is nothing morally wrong with being bad at something.

Every time you try, every time you practice, you always improve. It’s not possible to practice something and get worse at it.

So, just keep trying. Embrace being bad at something, shed the expectations of being good, and you will eventually end up where you want to be.