The Discomfort of Being a Beginner

When I was a little kid I had the courage and determination to tackle anything. There wasn’t anything I didn’t think I could do. I never worried about failing. I just kept working at whatever it was I wanted to learn until I mastered it.

I often wonder what happens to that courage and tenacity as we grow older. I don’t know about you; but as an adult I really don’t like being in that space where I don’t know how to do something. I don’t like feeling like a beginner, not knowing the next step and worrying about making a mistake or not succeeding. Where did that super-hero kid of mine go who has no fear?

I have been thinking a lot about this issue recently as I am taking a class in Social Media Marketing. The class is amazing and I am learning a ton. But I am a Baby Boomer and social media marketing is a little outside my comfort zone, both in terms of information and technology. So I have to push myself to stay engaged and not to let the voices of doubt and fear tell me I am too old to learn this.

Fear and discomfort are powerful emotions that often times mask themselves in logical statements like, “You are doing just fine without this class. Why do you want to take all this extra time and energy to learn about Facebook and Twitter?” Or, “Do you really think that learning this is going to make any real difference in your life?”

For me, how much I learn or don’t learn in this class is not really the important thing. The larger issue is that I that I don't let my fear of being a beginner hold me back from participating in an exciting new adventure.

Is the fear of being a beginner holding you back from something new you want to learn?


To live a creative life, we must lose the fear of being wrong.
Joseph Chilton Pearce