The art of being a beginner again

I have been thinking a lot lately about how strange it is to be a beginner again when you are an adult.

When we are young, being new at something is just part of life. We are constantly learning how to do things, figuring out what we like, changing our minds, and trying things that may or may not work out. There is not nearly as much pressure to know exactly what we are doing because, well, we are still figuring ourselves out.

At some point, though, we get used to being competent.

We know our jobs and how to pay the bills. We know how to get through a busy week. We have learned what we are naturally good at and, in many cases, built entire careers around it. So when an opportunity comes along that puts us right back into the position of not knowing what we are doing, it can bring up a surprising amount of discomfort.

Starting an online business can feel like that.

Maybe you have spent years working in an industry unrelated to entrepreneurship and never considered yourself a business person at all. Maybe you have reached a point where you want more financial, time and location freedom. 

The idea can be both exciting and scary. We should talk about the scary part more often.

It’s OK to not know what you’re doing

One thing that can keep us from starting is the idea that we need to understand everything before we take the first step. We want to understand how a business works, how to talk about it, what to post, how to find customers, how to use social media, and what to say when someone asks a question we don't know how to answer.

If you approach starting a business with the expectation that you should already know all of that, you can make yourself feel completely unqualified before you have even begun.

When I started learning about online business, I didn’t suddenly wake up one morning with an entrepreneurial brain. I had to learn things I had never done before, and there were plenty of moments when I had questions that felt so basic I almost didn't want to ask them.

That is one reason I think having a community around you matters so much.

When you have a like-minded community of entrepreneurs who can help, the idea is not that you are handed a business and expected to figure everything else out on your own. You have training, resources, and other entrepreneurs around you who are working toward similar goals. There are people who have already been through the stage you are in, which means you can learn from their experience instead of feeling like you have to reinvent everything yourself.

That doesn't make starting effortless, but it can make it feel much less overwhelming.

Give yourself permission to be awkward

Let’s stick with the ‘starting a business’ idea. You might not feel particularly comfortable talking about your business at first. You might spend far too long trying to write a social media post because you are worried about saying the wrong thing. Or, you might watch someone else who has been doing this for years and wonder why they seem so comfortable while you are still trying to figure out where to begin.

Try not to make that comparison mean something it doesn't.

All it means is that they have the practice under their belt and you don’t. Yet.

We tend to look at somebody who is good at something and forget that we are seeing the result of hundreds or thousands of repetitions. Their confidence did not appear out of nowhere. They developed it by doing the thing over and over again, including all the times when they probably felt awkward doing it.

You get to have that experience, too. Your first conversation does not have to be your best conversation. Your first post doesn't have to be your best. You are allowed to improve as you go!

In fact, that is largely how life naturally happens.

Motivation comes from seeing yourself move

I also don't think motivation always arrives before you begin.

Sometimes we imagine that successful people must wake up every morning feeling completely inspired and ready to work on their goals, but that has never felt particularly realistic to me. There will be days when you are excited about what you are building and days when you would rather do almost anything else. What helps is having small evidence that you are moving forward.

Maybe you finally understand something that confused you last week. Maybe you have your first conversation with someone who is genuinely interested in what you are doing. Maybe you make your first sale, learn how to use a new tool, or simply sit down and do something that you had been putting off because you were nervous.

With each win, you start to realize that you can figure things out. And once you know that about yourself, the next challenge becomes less intimidating and more actionable.

Let other people be part of the process

One of the things I find especially valuable about building an online business with a community is that you get to see the full range of experiences, rather than only seeing the people who appear to have everything figured out.

You see people who are just getting started and asking the same questions you are asking, and others who have been doing it longer can offer advice because they remember what it was like to be new. You get to learn from other people's mistakes instead of having to make every single one yourself.

When you have a community like this, you don't have to walk into the room pretending to be an entrepreneur. You can simply be someone who is curious about what might be possible and willing to learn. And that’s enough to get started!

Maybe being a beginner is exactly what you need

I think we sometimes treat being a beginner as a temporary state that we need to hurry through so we can finally become good at something. I see it differently.

There is something really refreshing about doing something that you have not mastered yet because it gives you a chance to surprise yourself, discover abilities you might not have known were there, and step outside of the identity you have built around what you already know how to do.

Starting an online business may not feel comfortable at first, and it probably shouldn't. You are asking yourself to learn new skills and consider possibilities that may be very different from the life you have been living. Just don’t let that discomfort turn into a reason to stop.

You can be nervous and curious at the same time, ask questions, and still move forward with excitement about the possibilities, knowing you have a lot to learn. Put simply: You can start before you feel completely ready.

I think that is one of the best things about being a beginner again. You get to remember that you are still capable of learning something completely new, even after you thought you had yourself pretty well figured out.