On Starting Before We're Ready
By Andy Heath
When we are born, we start to learn. Our parents put little blue outfits on us if we are boys and little pink outfits on us if we are girls, and we learn that we have a gender. We learn that when we cry, someone comes and helps us. We learn to use that crying to our advantage if we wet ourselves or grow hungry; it is as if we have our own servants to come in and do whatever we wish whenever we cry.
As we grow older, we learn that we can move from place to place by crawling. Then we learn that walking is better, though we fall down quite a bit. Being as small as we are, the falling down does not bother us so much, and we maintain persistence in our efforts to learn to walk. Once we have learned to walk, we learn to run. We also learn that we are not to run inside, and we learn this first because our parents yell at us for doing so, and we learn it second once we fall down and sustain a minor injury.
At school, we learn to read and write. We learn simple math. We learn the basics of science, art, literature, and history. Those of us that have at least high school diplomas generally spend at least thirteen years studying the theories of the universe and the cultures of our societies. So we learn. And we learn. And we never stop learning.
I am certainly a great advocate for learning, but a problem with learning exists. We, as human beings, do not know when we have learned enough. Because we spend such inordinate amounts of learning and because we always seem to be in communication with those that know more than we do about just about any subject that humanity knows, we decide that our skills are inadequate. We decide that we are inadequate.
And so we say things like, "I can't run a marathon. I'm still learning to run." We say things like, "I can't write a book. I know I can't because I have not learned to write one yet." Name your field, any field, and you will find the greatest treasures in that field are never uncovered because we, as human beings, learn from an early age that no matter how much we learn, we will never know enough. "Creativity is for the experts. Businesses are run by those that know how to run a business." We assume that the truly great people in our society either started out great or that they are somehow inherently superior to the rest of us. Neither of these assumptions is the case.
Institutions have conducted a lot of studies that prove that human beings learn in different ways and that we each have a propensity for learning in one particular way or another. Some of us are visual learners. Some are auditory. Some are kinesthetic and must learn simply by doing. Many of these same studies would have us believe that kinesthetic learners are inferior to visual and auditory learners because kinesthetic learners cannot learn anything without first doing it. Nonsense.
The very simple fact is that kinesthetic learners are often the only ones to actually go ahead and do something. While the visual learners stand about talking about how wonderful they are, how they know how to do something simply because they watched another do it, you will find that these "cerebral" learners never actually go ahead and do anything. Perhaps they spend their time reading about life without actually living it. Ironically, if someone asks them to perform a task whether it is typing a letter, painting a picture, or digging a ditch; you will find that even if they can stumble through it the first time, they are far from perfect at it unless they devote themselves to engaging in such activities over a period of time.
My maternal grandmother once said that those that change the world are the ones that will go ahead and do something, not the ones that stand around talking about it. We might like to think, in order to give up responsibility for our own success, that we are incapable of making changes in the world until we learn how to do whatever, but that is not true. We often learn to do a task simply by doing it.
Whether we decide that we are going to write a book, dig a ditch, work a puzzle, or create a computer program, we often have to make the decision to go ahead and get started on these activities if we are ever going to see them completed. Someone once said that when the student is ready, the teacher will appear. I would advocate that not only does the student decide when he's ready, but that he often calls forth his own teacher as an act of conscious volition.
Regardless, we find that the learning continues. And yes, we learn throughout our entire lives. Even after we have chosen a profession and have met the minimum standards for performing in that profession, we still continue to learn. Lawyers must graduate from a rigorous academic legal program and pass the Bar Exam prior to practicing law, but once a lawyer has done so, he is still only minimally qualified to practice his profession. It is simply true that a lawyer with twenty years' experience is a better lawyer than one that has just passes his Bar Exam. I do not, however, advocate that the first lawyer neglect to practice simply because there are others in his field better than he, nor do I advocate that he wait until his skills are better before he begins practicing. If he allowed either of these examples to prevent him from immediately beginning the practice of law, he would never begin practicing law. While he will continue to grow in his profession throughout his working life, he cannot neglect beginning the journey once he is minimally qualified.
What do people wait for? I talk to people all the time who pour their dreams out to me. They want to be doctors, lawyers, writers, nurses, musicians, poets, teachers, professors, and everything else you can imagine. The problem is, however, that they do not pursue their goals. They do not pursue their goals utilizing the excuse that they are not ready. It is an interesting paradox that the only way to become ready to do anything is to start before one is ready. If one waits until he is ready, he will wait for his entire life.
It is true that we never stop learning, but at some point we must showcase the talent that we do have. Our work may not be the best that the world has ever produced, and indeed, we may never be the best in our field. But the time comes when we have learned enough that we can begin contributing in our chosen field while continuing the learning process. Sometimes we must venture blindly into the unknown, but how can we ever accomplish anything if we simply wait until we are ready. That point never comes until we have been involved in our profession for a long time.
Terrifying as it is, if we are to make progress in our lives, and indeed make a contribution to the world, the only way we will be able to do so is to throw ourselves out to the world and accept the cuts, bruises, and injuries of starting before we are ready. This is what we commonly call courage. We move forward in our fear knowing that what we are attempting to accomplish is worth it. This is the only way to make our mark on the world. The only way we can make our contribution and leave the world a better place than we found it because of our existence is to begin. It does not matter where. We can begin anywhere. But the point is that we must begin. We must move through our fear. We must conquer that fear and, at times, ignore that fear in order to do that which our hearts burn to do and our passions demand us to do. We must realize that we can wait no longer for the world to show us our teacher or teach us what we must learn to be perfect before we begin. We must simply begin. We must.
Let's begin.
