52. The Good Thing About Being Shit At Stuff

In everyone's interest, let’s skip the Happy New Years/general niceties and jump straight into it.

I recently heard something that I found quite interesting. 

It was a discussion about dopamine (i.e. that feel good chemical that we all know and love), and the things that can trigger its release.

One of those things is seeing evidence of advancement towards a worthwhile goal.

(Using that flair pink colour for that line because I think it's an important, and well summed up point)

Basically, we tend to feel pretty good in life when we’re making forward steps towards something that means something to us. 

Holla! 

Now, before we get too excited, I appreciate that you may be thinking “Hang on, this is just a fancy way of dressing up the whole Journey vs. Destination thing”. Which is fair, but I do believe this has a little bit more substance. 

I mean, we’re talking about dopamine so… science innit!? 

Seriously though, any scientific explanations aside, I’m sure that anecdotally, this is something that many of us can resonate with. 

As ever, I can only speak for myself, but I couldn’t agree more on this. Without doubt, it’s during those ‘Evidence of advancement towards a worthwhile goal’ times where I feel like I have the most zest for life. 

Now, with it being January - typically a time where thoughts about things like setting new goals, building new habits, learning new skills, or still desperately trying to offset the festive overindulgences tend to, at least momentarily, go through our heads  - it felt like a rather apt time to hear this point. 

For examples sake, let’s say we have set some sort of NYR, and it’s to start doing something that we haven’t really done before. Learn a new language, start a new hobby, try some type of new exercise etc.

As it's new, we’re most likely going to be pretty shit at it.  

There are obvious downsides to this. Don’t our egos just let us know.

However, perhaps slightly counterintuitively, being shit at something can actually be kinda nice. When we’re a complete novice, it can be where we see the quickest gains and general progress. For example, it tends to be:

• Easier to get our 5km time down from 41 minutes to 39 minutes, than it is to get it down from 21 minutes to 19 minutes. 

• Easier to lose weight if we’re carrying 50kg of body fat, than if we're carrying 10kg of body fat

• Easier to learn 10 words when we don’t know a language, than it is when we’re fluent

Generally, it’s easier to become alright at something, than it is to become very good. 

As such, these earlier moments where we can see some relatively quick progress can be some of the most rewarding times. 

On this progression point, comedian Jimmy Carr talks about a similar thing, and the importance of the trajectory that we’re on (as opposed to our current status/ability) being a key determinant of our overall enjoyment of doing something.

He gives the example that, again slightly counterintuitively, we’d be far less content if we were 2nd place at something but down from 1st place, than if we were 150th but up from 300th.

Although in absolute terms we’re much lower, in relative terms we’re much higher. 

Evidence of advancement towards a worthwhile goal. 

That takes us back to the dopamine point. Our dopaminergic system gets driven not by pleasure itself, but by the expectation of pleasure.

This is why the thought of something can often be better than the actual thing. Or why the ‘doing/getting the thing’ can often be more enjoyable than the ‘having the thing’.

When we’re working towards something, there’s a load of potential for what that thing can be. We’re not quite sure what the end output will look like, and we can get a little excited/carried away.

I’m sure we’ve all been there. We start to see progression at something, and can convince ourselves that it won’t be long before we become a Grandmaster. 

• We get into our 2nd KM of a run, and start thinking about all those Ultra Marathons that we’re inevitably going to run 

• We lose a couple of KGs, and believe it won’t be long until we’re looking like prime Ronnie Coleman 

• We learn how to say “Do you speak English?” in Portuguese, and then basically feel that we’re ready for full blown Philosophical debates

Obviously, a slight exaggeration, but you get the point. Our minds can easily get carried away with the possibilities, and it’s exciting. 

It’s similar to why the thought of something can often be better than the actual thing itself. 

Take a Holiday, when we’re organising it we think of the unlimited possibilities of things we can do, see, and drink… and don’t tend to focus on the travel delays, stress, and needing a shit at an inconvenient time. 

I quite like hearing reassuring things. And as a novice in pretty much everything in life, I find a reminder about the benefits of being shit at something to always be fairly useful. As such, with it being NYR season, it felt like a particularly apt time to pull this post together. 

Although being a beginner can be fairly demoralising, the potential of whatever thing we’re working towards and the relatively quick progress that can be made in those early stages can also make it some of the most rewarding times. 

And on that, I should probably make some sort of progress towards posting this.

Thank you for reading. Or rather, to use some of those Duolingo gainz, Obrigado por ler.