“If you want to get good at something, your only job is to do it really badly. A lot.”
Those were the words I said to my nine year old on our walk yesterday, realizing that I needed to hear those words as much as he did.
As the product of the 80’s and 90’s “lost girls” - most commonly the gifted eldest daughter with report cards full of words like “potential” and “bright” next to “disruptive” and “distracted” and “disorganized” - I am intimately familiar with my brain’s response to being bad at something.
Once upon a time, especially in my younger years, I would simply not continue anything that I was not immediately good at.
See, I was supposed to be immediately good at things. Just innately amazing. Because I was praised for grades that frankly, I didn’t work that hard for. My brain just worked the same way school worked, so I was good.
If my brain didn’t automatically work the way something worked, I was bad.
So, I did not do things I was not instantly good at.
As I got older, my options for not doing things I wasn’t instantly good at were... limited.
You see, they don’t let you do certain things in life unless you can get good at them, and other things take a long time to get really good at.
And we’re not born knowing how to do calculus, or run 20km, or build a business, and so, I had to get a lot more comfortable doing things I was not good at.
But I still didn’t like it.
I’d often avoid the things I was worst at, for sure.
I would avoid the spotlight, the centre of attention, or leading in any capacity, because that would make my failures more visible.
I would hide out while I learned. I’d fail privately, so I didn’t look wrong or bad. I’d want to practice at home, fail in private, suck at things behind closed doors, and emerge looking like a natural master who was born with the ability to excel.
And then I had kids.
You know who doesn’t care that you’re self-conscious while doing yoga? A 9-year-old who wants Robux.
The beautiful thing about my kids, though, is that they also didn’t understand why I’d be hiding.
Because as they’ve grown, I’ve made a conscious choice to always praise their effort over their skill.
To congratulate them on trying hard, rather than just succeeding.
To gas them up for getting on the court, not just their wins.
Do they get praise for succeeding? Absolutely!
But it is framed as evidence that their hard work is working, and not as pride in their innate ability or the outcome they produced.
More recently, I’ve made more of an effort to show them that I, too, suck at many things.
I’ve stopped hiding in the basement while I exercise. I’ve practiced things in front of them. I’ve shown them my art “fails”, my cursed DIY projects, and yes, talked about my business challenges and failures as a matter of course. As if these are just things that happen, part of life, part of growing and development.
Back to Sunday. I’m doing the whole “couch to 5k” thing yet again because I missed running, but life got in the way of doing it for far too long. It was my first time having to run for 5 continuous minutes, and I was genuinely nervous that I wouldn’t be able to.
And my youngest decided he wanted to run with me, so off we went.
We were out, and talking about pacing, and why it’s better to jog slower than you think during a run like this, so you can make sure you have enough energy to actually finish the workout.
I was explaining that it was okay to be slower than you want to be one day, and still keep running, because the goal isn’t to be the fastest - only one person can be the fastest! The goal for everyone else is to have fun and do your best.
He told me he knows, and that he’d like to win a race one day. So I asked him, “Do you know how you win a race - or anything else in life?”
He says “how?”
“If you want to get good at something, your only job is to do it really badly. A lot.”
“That’s true,” he says.
At 9, he already has the wisdom it took me an extra 27 years to gather.
The reason I’m sharing this with you today is that this is true in business, too.
If you want to get good at sales, you have to be bad at sales - a lot.
If you want to get good at social, you have to be bad at social - a lot.
If you want to get good at launches, or tech stuff, or copywriting, or bookkeeping, or just business in general, you have to be bad at it - a lot.
When you commit to just being bad at it as much as possible, and remove the expectation of being good right away, you free yourself from the judgment and struggle that comes with unrealized potential and unmet expectations.
You settle in for a long, slow run, at the back of the pack, with no expectations. You adjust your pace, put a smile on your face, and get down to being the absolute worst at everything you can, as much as you can.
A wonderful thing happens when you do that, too.
You get better - a lot faster than you think.
So if you’re in a space right now where it feels like you’re not good at this, or things aren’t working, or your goals are right there but you just can’t reach them and don’t know if you ever will be able to…
Well, maybe you just haven’t been bad at it for long enough yet.
There’s only one way to find out.
- Cheryl
Come be bad at stuff in Solo School
One of my favourite things about Solo School is the way we give you full permission to just absolutely suck at something in a safe environment.
Want to show us your sales script when it’s just the words “I have no idea” over and over?
Ready to bring your first Canva design in for critique, and you know it looks like an MS Paint reject from 1998?
Feel like you need to cry in a group setting today?
Come fail with us.
That’s not even a joke. Solo School is a community built on failing together, on being bad enough at things for long enough to get good at them, on getting critiques from someone who actually cares about your feelings and your humanity without sugar-coating things or making it a compliment sandwich (which you can absolutely see through, and it’s just embarassing.)
If you want a step-by-step curriculum to guide you to success, whether you’ve just got an idea, you’ve got a validated offer, you’re trying to get consistent, or you’re ready to scale, AND you want to build your business skills along the way with a group full of people who are all equally bad at various things, then apply to join our May cohort.
Things I love right now
About a year ago, a treadmill tried to kill my sister.
Not actually 😂 but the belt was loose and needed lubrication, so it yeeted her off the thing in a way that made her never want to see it again. So she gifted it to me.
In true ADHD fashion, it sat in my garage gathering dust, waiting to come downstairs any day now, ever since, but then I got an idea.
It was a wonderful, awful idea. (Said in my best Grinch voice.)
See, I have a standing desk. And I’ve been moving my body more. But I’m also hypermobile AF (full on ostrich legs - IYKYK),a so standing for any length of time in one place is not only difficult but actually painful.
You see where this is going?
I removed the arms from the gifted deathtrap, lugged it down my precariously steep concrete stairs from the garage, and put it under my desk with the control panel set on top of the motor.
Today, without really leaving my office, I’ve done 5800 steps, I haven’t sat down at my desk even ONCE, and I’m in less pain than when I try to stand.
Even better? Walking is like the ultimate fidget. Go slow enough and you don’t really think about walking, but it’s enough movement to act as a stim and no longer feel the need to move around and bounce and get distracted with objects all day.
So I walked 5800 steps while writing two newsletters, drafting a speech, structuring a curriculum, designing multiple assets, and posting to social 3x in one day.
Heaven knows that adaptations like this never work forever, but for now, I’m quite happy with my daily stroll while I create awesome things!
My Favourite Things This Week
A friend of mine lent me a book some time ago (The Paris Bookseller, if you’re curious which one) and in it, she included one of those nifty magnetic bookmarks.
You know the ones - they magnetically stick together over a page, or a couple of pages, making it nearly impossible to lose your place.
I thanked her for lending the bookmark with the book, and she told me that the bookmark wasn’t a loan - she gifts it to her reader friends when she lends out books, as a little token of reader-to-reader love.
When I tell you I absolutely loved this idea… Kelly is such a kind-hearted person, this just made me smile!
Now I’m loaning her the entire ACOTAR box set to give her some summer reads, and I wanted to return the favour but in a way that was really me. So, I broke out my loom and some of my favourite hand-spun multi-coloured yarn and I hand-wove her a bookmark specifically for this series!
I guess you could say, my favourite thing this week is doing little things for people to make them smile, and having friends with equally big hearts.
What I’m Reading
Trail of the Lost got renewed at the library, I did not read it in time. But that’s fine, because I don’t actually care. I just want to read the book.
I’ve laid out my next several books, alternating fiction and non-fiction, and I’m hoping to set aside more reading time over the next little while. We shall see what happens!!
Remember you can always follow me over on StoryGraph to see what I recommend week to week, what I'm reading, and which books got the lowest reviews from me (which isn't very many because I never want someone to go to all the trouble of writing a book and then hear something bad about it. I'm a softie.)
