For a long time, I was an expert. People would come to me, ask me questions and yes, I would have the answer. Dilemmas would arise and I would trot out experiences that showed how we overcame something like that in the past. Proposals would be made and I would have the power to veto or change it or say yes. There was a lot of comfort in knowing the right answers, in providing the right steps but there was a point when it all became boring and repetitive.
When I quit my two day jobs in a year, I went back to being a beginner. Suddenly, I joined industries I knew very little about. I had to do social media posts, make a website, book a photographer and makeup artist, style a shoot, attend a class in a foreign country.
It’s the most uncomfortable feeling and sometimes I want to flee back to the familiar. But it also has its benefits, such as:
- Learning something new. You actually feel your mind and world expand when you go back to trying things out that you’ve never done before.
- The satisfaction of gaining confidence and becoming better at something the more you do it.
- Becoming a more interesting person. Suddenly, you’re not just defined by one thing anymore.
- Greater enthusiasm for life. It becomes fascinating again rather than the boring plodding that characterized it in the past.
So how about you? When was the last time you did something for the first time?
