After leaving the corporate world and going through four years of schooling, my wife recently became a registered nurse — something she had dreamt about for years.
Yet after her first day on the job two weeks ago, she began to have serious doubts about her abilities.
“I feel so lost!” she exclaimed. “I can’t imagine how I’ll ever know as much as the experienced nurses I worked with today.”
She felt overwhelmed, even a bit incompetent. Never mind that she had ended up with one of the highest grades in her class. Never mind that she had won an award for her excellent performance during her residency.
To her, the seasoned nurses in her unit were smarter, sharper and much more talented than she was.
Ever been in that situation as a freelancer?
You’re either learning a new skill or working to develop a new specialty. You see others around you talk about this stuff like it’s child’s play…and you begin to wonder if you’re cut out for this.
But here’s the thing: Just because you’re learning, doesn’t mean you’re no good. And it doesn’t mean that those who have achieved competency or mastery are any better or smarter than you are. That idea may make for a better movie or news story, but that’s not how the world works.
I don’t care who it is; behind every “talent” there are countless hours of practice, sacrifice, failure, self-doubt and sleepless nights.
That’s the stuff we don’t see as spectators. That’s the stuff the movie or news reporter won’t tell you about. Because it’s not pretty. It’s not glamorous to say that you had to practice, sacrifice and make mistakes day after day. In a way, it ruins the story.
My wife made the error of putting these other nurses on a pedestal. In her mind, they were born that way — knowing everything about everything. (Heck, I’ve made the same mistake many times!)
Yet every expert started out knowing zip! He or she had to screw up a lot before developing the competence necessary to do their job well…and the mastery to make it look easy.
In fact, Michael Masterson, author of the bestselling books Ready, Fire, Aim and Changing the Channel asserts that it takes anywhere from 600 to 1,000 hours to achieve competence at any complex skill.
And Malcolm Gladwell, author of Outliers, has found that it takes 10,000 hours of education and practice to master a complex skill, to achieve true greatness. Citing numerous studies and examples of people most of us might consider “gifted,” Gladwell offers convincing proof that if you’re willing to put in the time, effort and dedication, you can be great at anything.
The lesson here is clear. Feeling inadequate when learning a new skill or starting out in a new field is completely natural. We all go through it.
The trick, however, lies in using that feeling of inadequacy as a motivator to get better, faster. Rather than letting the situation bring us down, we can use it as fuel to help us improve.
Tell us your story. How did you feel when you were first starting out as a freelancer? How did you get better? How long did it take before you felt confident enough to go after the clients and projects you wanted? What advice would you give someone just starting out?
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Ed Gandia is co-founder of The Wealthy Freelancer and author of the popular e-book Stop Wishing and Start Earning: A Low-Risk Plan to Escape 9-5 and Launch a Profitable Copywriting Business.
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What a great subject to address, I was just talking to a friend about this same situation and how it really does take time to become an expert and feel confident in what you do. People don’t want to hear about the hours and hours it spent in learning how to build websites or the failures you had along the way.
This is a great subject! Been there, done that. Believe me I do understand when you are talking about your wife’s new career. I suppose during this hard economic period a lot of us are finding ourselves forced to explore in new ways to bring extra cash or finally see ourselves with the clear path to venture in a dream career after a layoff and in many cases sacrificing a lot of hours studying and/or researching how to do a task in order to avoid feeling like a failure and self-doubt. The good news is that eventually after countless hours of practice, it does get better. Thanks.
I have a great example of this. A couple years ago I was asked if I could write a white paper. I said sure (never done one) so I went out on the Web and found “The White Paper on White Papers” by Michael Stelzner. I built an outline from his recommendations, read several white paper samples online, and wrote my first one. I was unsure about it, but with only one round of revisions the client loved it! I have written many white papers since and they have become one of my four business writing specialities.
Hi Nedra – You’re so right. The hard work part is not sexy. We all just want to believe that the “gifted” violinist, writer, painter and architect were born that way. It makes for a better story (for most people; I prefer to hear the REAL story!). BTW, talked with your friend Jason the other day. Good guy. Gave him some suggestions; hope they helped.
Maria – When I was learning the art of drumming in high school, my instructor had me do repetitive drills for hours and hours. Hated it! Teens don’t get that concept. Then I started outperforming my peers…by a huge margin. And I “got it.” Rote drills were suddenly a lot more fun.
Diane – What a great example! I had a similar situation with case studies. “Sure, I can write those for you! Oh, crap! Where am I going to learn how to write a case study?!” Bet you spent a ton of time on that first white paper, didn’t you? And I bet you were glad you did! Congrats on your success!
I can’t count the number of times I have gone out on a limb agreeing to do something that I wasn’t sure I could do or knew how to do. Just the other night I was implementing a new technique on a web site and I rebuilt it 5 times before getting it right! It felt so awesome when I was done and it was working like I thought it should. Personally I find this to be one of the most rewarding aspects of being a freelancer. The constant growth from forcing yourself into situations you never thought you could do. I think most of us grow more through a bit of adversity then coasting along because we knew it all the first time.
Michael – I always tell people that freelancing is one of the best ways you can grow both personally and professionally. There’s nowhere to hide. You can’t get by being average or cheating the system. If you want to make a decent living, you HAVE to continually improve yourself. It’s very “efficient” and transparent in that regard.
I agree totally with Gladwell. I read his book recently, it almost seemed like he started out the prove that hard work and talent arent enough to make it happen and yet he proved that indeed that is true in most cases. Once you have crossed the line into the appropriately talented range (such as a basketball player being tall or a sprinter having a lot of fast twitch muscle fibers) then it is indeed that 10,000 hours of hard practice that makes a world class performance. Kurzweil and Grossman noted in their recent book “Transcend” that the brain is far more plastic that we had before thought. This means that in the doing of something we re-wire the brain so that it processes better in that context. Absolutely cool! But also more proof tha practice and persistence creates talent.
lol… anyway I run on too much… nice post! and nice to see someone else reading Gladwell.
Wayne – The concept you mention above (that once you’ve crossed the line into the “appropriately talented” group, it’s then all about hard work and perseverance) was perhaps one of the most important in the book. Frankly, it was a revelation to me. I had long suspected that talent was, indeed, overrated. But reading “Outliers” not only proved that was the case, it also shed some light on why that is so. I’ll have to check out “Transcend.” Haven’t read it yet. Thanks for your comment!