I used to hate doing things I was bad at. I’ve always had a lot of interests, in everything from sports like tennis and golf, to more intellectual pursuits like writing, chess, and learning languages. I used to think I was lucky to have some natural ability in some of those activities. I now believe it wasn’t lucky and has actually stunted my growth and development. You see when I started those things, I didn’t have to put in a lot of effort to impress people, so I never did put in the effort in those things and never became as good at them as I could have been. Sure, there have been a few things in my life that I have worked on improving, like cooking, that I didn’t start out great at. But I never looked at it in the way that I’ve learned now, first, that you can improve at anything if you keep trying. And second, that sometimes the most rewarding challenges to get better at are the ones that you are the worst at.
I’ve come to realize that if you never challenge yourself to push through things that you start out poor at, you will never learn the skill of perseverance, and perseverance will take you farther in life than any other one skill you might be good at. Even if you are naturally good at something, you will eventually hit a wall where you can’t progress any farther without really putting the work in. And that’s normally where I’d end up, halfway decent at something, but never great, because it had been easy for me at the beginning and I’d never learned how to push myself through the tough times. It’s easy to fall into this trap and have it start becoming a habit. It is natural to feel demoralized and insecure about not being good at something. But if it’s natural, if the thing is easy to be good at, is it really that impressive?
I finally learned this lesson by practicing jiujitsu. I’d done some martial arts when I was in my late teens but had stopped for many years. Unfortunately, I didn’t wrestle in high school, but grappling had interested me since I saw how effective it was in mixed martial arts. I finally reached a point where I was ready to give it a try when I was 33 years old and had just lost around 15kg. I knew I needed to find a physical hobby that would keep me active if I didn’t want my weight to start creeping up again. So I finally gave jiujitsu a try. And I was horrible. For the first six months, I happened to be traveling a lot for work, and I was still working on losing more weight, so I wasn’t training consistently. But every time I went I got mauled. One of the best things about jiujitsu is that you can start sparring at full force pretty early without the risk of getting badly injured in the form of a concussion or other serious damage. This makes the art more tested, but it is also demoralizing because you can see and feel how much better other people are. But I got hooked, even though I could never beat anyone, it was like a mystical power that I had to learn for myself.
I’ve kept training for the past 5 and a half years and never taken longer than a 2-week break. In fact, I still suck. I’m not athletically gifted and new people come in and give me a hard time often. I can’t see my progress day-to-day, there’s no time to beat or a higher number of points to score. I just keep showing up. I keep training, putting in the reps, and challenging myself. And once in a while, on a good day, I do something that makes me realize I am getting better and have come a long way since I started. I think too often these days we are looking for instant gratification, for a hack that is going to make us rich, find the perfect partner, or make our lives so much easier. But jiujitsu has taught me that isn’t the case. If something is worth learning to do well, you have to put in the work. And learning to continue to pursue something you suck at makes you stronger, more mentally able to take on challenges, and know you can get through them
I now look forward to continuing to pursue improving things I suck at. In fact, it is far more rewarding to look back at a tough journey and see how far you’ve come than it is to be proud of what came easy to you. It’s worth doing things you suck at because you’ll value your achievements so much more highly, and you’ll learn about yourself along the way. The journey is your reward.