Learning by Doing: Jump In, Suck, and Figure It Out

“Musicians should go to a yard sale and buy an old fucking drum set and get in their garage and just suck. And get their friends to come in and they’ll suck, too. And then they’ll fucking start playing and they’ll have the best time they’ve ever had in their lives and then all of a sudden they’ll become Nirvana. Because that’s exactly what happened with Nirvana… and they became the biggest band in the world.”

— Dave Grohl, Nirvana / Foo Fighters

There is one thing preventing you from getting really good at that thing you’ve always wanted to be really good at. Your ego.

Maybe you want to learn how to play piano, maybe you want to learn how to tango, how to speak Swahili, act, cook, do Taekwondo, start a blog about nothing in particular so you can impart self-aggrandizing wisdom on strangers… Whatever it is, there’s really only one way to learn how to do it:

Start doing it.

Let’s get one thing clear: this is not a moturbational (motivation + masturbation… I made that up) post vomiting out platitudes like: “Your only competition is you!” or “When people ask what you do, say ‘whatever it takes!’” or “Don’t talk, just act. Don’t say, just show. Don’t promise, just prove.”