To embrace being terrible

It can only get better from here. (October 2018, Englewood, Ohio)

A couple of summers ago, my husband and I decided that we wanted to learn to play tennis.

To begin our journey, we and I obtained some used racquets and dead balls at a local shop and then headed down to the neighborhood courts, as far away from other humans as we could get.

Then, we started tapping the ball back and forth over the net. Trying to, anyway. The balls bounced wildly all over the court and into the net. Movements were clumsy and awkward on my part, overly aggressive and baseball-like on his. We laughed a lot.

That was the beginning. We had no illusions about being good at the game, so we simply embraced being terrible at it.

If you have never tried this — actually enjoying the experience of being comically bad at something — I highly recommend it. All of the trying and striving and hoping to look good goes out the window because you simply can’t reach that standard. You just flail and fail, and live to tell the tale. It is liberating.

The day after this first tennis “practice,” I went to a beginners’ meetup nearby. The stakes were raised a bit, because there were other people to bear witness to my poor skills. But that was no big deal. Because A, why would I expect to already be good? and B, everyone else was probably more focused on their own performance than mine.

Honestly, if I hit the ball poorly — or missed it completely, which happened a great deal — I might be doing them a favor. I’d be giving them an opportunity to smirk and feel quietly superior. In the meantime, I’d be learning.

As Jason, the instructor, pointed out, with every attempt, we make unconscious adjustments that inform the next one. I was so bad that I had nowhere to go but up, and I did see improvement as I began to figure stuff out and adapt. It was frustrating at times, but mostly fun.

Just a couple of months later, I was playing — and even winning — matches in a singles flex league. It was still frustrating at times, but mostly fun.

I was by no means an accomplished or polished tennis player, but I was a tennis player. I was able to achieve solid results by putting a lot of effort in a short period of time. I practiced every day.

Even more importantly, however, I wanted to practice every day. I was okay with being terrible at tennis and I didn’t beat myself up for it. That meant that I had only positive associations with the sport and the experience of playing. Thus, I couldn’t wait to get out on to the court. Over time, this virtuous cycle strengthened to the point where I wasn’t as terrible.

Many of us lose out on the joy of being awful in the early stages of learning a skill, believing we should already know how to do it. This shame causes us to avoid opportunities to learn instead of seeking them out. We either try and give up quickly or don’t try at all. Instead of growing and learning, we stay where we are, small and safe. If, instead, we can accept and embrace being terrible at first, we can build enough momentum to keep going and start seeing some wins.

There are no promises when it comes to learning. Each of us has different talents, aptitudes, and past experiences that affect our initial results and the pace of our progress. I can promise that if you stick with an activity, you will get better at it. Improvement is inevitable. You just have to be able to deal with the pain of being bad at it before you are good at it. Make the effort to embrace being terrible, and before you know it, you might be all right.

The support of others is helpful in overcoming the frustration and fear of failure. I’m thinking of getting a group together to pursue our projects in the new year — let me know if you’d be interested!