Beginner's Mind

Lately, I’ve been working on a programming course with a company called Droidcon. It’s a video project and I’m new to the realm of video production.

During voiceover, I would write each sentence down and rehearse a couple of times before hitting record. And still it would take me multiple attempts to speak perfectly.

Sometimes I’d fumble; sometimes I’d sound robotic. Sometimes I’m too close to the mic and it’s as if I’m shouting; and sometimes the background noise is just too loud.

Retake after retake, I finished the voiceover. It took me two hours to record a two minute video.

Quite an underwhelming experience. I started thinking whether the short (and crappy) clip was worth the tremendous amount of effort that went in.

This was me, finding it hard to become a beginner again. After all, it’s been years since I was starting over, learning something completely new.

It’s important to understand that as a beginner, it’s only natural to take more time and to put more effort for a considerably less output.

Deep down, we know that we’ll get better and the effort-to-reward ratio will improve. But our mind is so used to the compounded gains, that we find it hard to begin again.

When learning becomes a grind and rewards become shallow, I seek comfort in the moments that planted the seed of the fruit that I’m enjoying today.

I recall my first line of code. That single line required me to watch hours content from the CS50 course. All it did was to print “aachman” into the console.

I recall that red square that rendered on my phone screen when I started learning app development. Days of reading and experimentation to render a single square.

I recall the two hours of non-stop fiddling with the Rubik’s cube when I first learnt to solve it. Then it took ten minutes. Eventually five minutes, and now thirty seconds.

Everything starts small. Everything looks bad before it looks good. Everything requires effort before it becomes effortless.

With this realization, I’m trying to embrace the beginner’s mind. I’m trying to detach from the outcome and find joy in the process.

I hope I have the courage to begin again, and again, and again.

How often do you think you can start over? Answer by replying to this email.

Have a nice week ahead!
Aachman