When you suck at what you love
Lesson #7: Do it for the joy, not mastery
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Since April 1 2024, up until last Friday, I have had at least 51 riding lessons and yet I am still working on mastering cantering (the pace faster than a trot, but slower than a gallop). My last lesson was a disaster, which left me questioning myself, “Why can’t I canter after more than a year, when others seem to get it in just a few months?”
And I know I’m not alone in this because progress is different for everyone. It’s something I have told many friends, so many times. Yet, when it comes to myself, somehow, that same advice is much harder to accept.
It’s easier to love what we’re naturally good at, but what happens when we really suck at something, but still love it anyway? First, let’s focus on the most important thing:
Progress is relative.
Instead of comparing yourself to others, which we are all guilty of, consider the following questions:
Have I made progress over the past few months compared to where I started?
Am I more aware of what I am doing?
Can I do this task better than when I first started?
If you answered yes to even one of those questions, that is progress. You are not behind. In the case of riding or similar discipline sports, think of it this way: you are not learning slower; you are learning properly. You are building strong foundations.
And remember, we can’t all be good at everything. If we were, life would be boring.
Failure = Learning
In Black Box Thinking by Matthew Syed, he describes a black box thinker as someone who learns from their mistakes and failures by analysing them openly, rather than denying or hiding them.
Simply put, the more you fail, the more you learn. Embrace failure because it teaches you humility, perseverance and to be open minded. When failure happens, lean into feedback to grow. Our society stigmatises failures but really, every failure is a learning opportunity in disguise.
Learning from failures
What was the root cause of the failure?
What can I do differently to prevent this from happening again?
Do I lack any knowledge or skills and if so, how can I close that gap?
Do it for the joy
We live in a world that constantly pressures us to perform or keep up with appearances in social media. Everything is a competition.
But it does not need to be.
You can do things because you enjoy them, not because you need to win or be the best. Joy is important and doing things for the joy of it nurtures creativity, supports learning, and strengthens one’s emotional well-being.
You don’t have to be good at something to enjoy it. You’re not obligated to turn something you love into something you’re good at.
- Matt Haig, The Midnight Library
Talent is not everything, and skill can be built up through deep passion, care and perseverance. By doing something just because you love it teaches you to love something truly just for yourself. As my yoga teacher tells me in every class, “you’re not a better person just because you can touch your toes”.
Most of Hayao Miyazaki’s films for Studio Ghibli were made to share personal messages instead of commercial success. For him, joy in the creative process is the most important thing, more so than pleasing an audience.
In Four Thousand Weeks, Oliver Burkeman explores the idea of hobbies in relation to atelic activities. For example, reading fiction, unplanned walks or riding for fun, not performance. They have no finish line because value is not from achieving an ultimate goal because there is no outcome to achieve. When you have a hobby that you are not necessarily ‘good’ at, it liberates you from the anxiety of having to ‘use your time well’. Best of all, it gives you the ultimate freedom to pursue the futile and the freedom to suck without caring.
It’s okay to love what you suck at.
You do not need to be the best at something for it to be worth your time. It’s a simple question: does it make you happy? If yes, keep doing it. Progress is relative and different for everyone. It is not linear but by embracing failures, you are welcoming learning opportunities.
As long as you can do something better than when you first started, you have made progress. Perhaps even more so than the experts in their field because you are doing it for the joy. You have something many professionals do not: the freedom to do what you love without the pressure or weight of expectations. You don’t need to please anyone but yourself.
For the curious reader
Books that inspired the thoughts on this page — and are worth a read: