Building the Muscle

In sports or any field, you learn through repetition.

You aren’t going to become skilled without a large number of reps. When I started my current job, I wasn’t good at it, which is the case with most of you.

I was subpar at almost everything I started doing as first. Getting better was a matter of repetition. It took time to get to a comfort level, a feeling of “I can do this,” and ultimately a place of “I’m one of the best at this.”

To go from novice to expert is a journey that anyone can make; it comes down to a decision to do the necessary work in 2 phases: mindset work (inner work) and muscle memory (outer work).

Most people fail because they don’t do one or both of these phases of the work.

Going to school was easy for me until it wasn’t. There were social issues that I dealt with, but I didn’t do the work because I didn’t know better.

The mindset work is building the belief that you can do what you set out to do. When I started writing, it wasn’t good.

Reading some of my old stuff makes me cringe, if I’m being honest. I could have stayed in that state by quitting. Many people do; they stop before they achieve competence.