This summer I wanted to move to Copenhagen and I started learning Danish. A very difficult language.
I spent a few months researching the Danish culture and I understood that for Danes, in order to accept you in their community, it’s important for you to speak their language. For this reason, I started learning it.
At the same time, I started working with a career coach to update my CV & portfolio and prepare for interviews. In one of the sessions, the career coach is asking me how well I speak Danish and I answered simply: “I know just a few words”.
Right after that, she encouraged me to add the Danish language to my CV and to mention that I’m a beginner.
I raised my eyebrow, trying to understand what my career coach was suggesting to me. I knew only a few words and she was encouraging me to add Danish to my CV. I remember I kept thinking “No way! I’m not doing this,” but she explained to me that I shouldn’t underestimate myself.
“From the moment you started learning, no matter how little progress you made, you are a beginner.”
That’s what my career coach told me and it stuck with me.
At that moment, I realized that, in my mind, being a beginner had a standard and things shouldn’t have been like that. Simply because that’s the beauty of new beginnings: there’s no standards attached to them.
The plateau in our mind when we start something new
There are many countries with an unhealthy standard for what learning and change mean. And this standard makes us look at ourselves in a way that kills self-confidence.
In my mind, to be a beginner when it comes to speaking a foreign language means to be able to have a conversation with a native, in their language, and make yourself understood. If we’re talking specifically about the Danish language, I would have probably gotten there in one year.
If things are like that, in the first year, what would have I been? What is the tag that I put on my progress if not “beginner”?
I don’t think there’s a word that describes the first chapter of a learning process better than “beginner”. But because of the plateau we have in our mind, which is connected to a standard, we have difficulties when we want to say we are beginners but we only started yesterday.
Therefore, we end up not having confidence in ourselves when we do something new because we don’t allow ourselves to be beginners. We don’t take responsibility for being at the start of the road (that we are beginners) and it makes us see ourselves differently than we are: it makes us think we are stupid.
When you don’t allow yourself to look at your skills and notice the investment you are making into these skills, you will instead look at your weaknesses and what you’re not capable of doing. In that moment, it’s very easy to change the tag from “beginner” to “stupid”. But there’s no truth in that.
Someone who works constantly to improve a certain skill is many things, and none of those things define that person as stupid.
This standard, of a capable beginner, is exactly what kills the joy of being incapable.
When you think of yourself as “being stupid” (because you are not capable of doing the things you want to do) and have a serious milestone for how you want to do things (the standard), you are not capable to enjoy things anymore.
Enjoy being a beginner
Beyond the enjoyment itself, we simply don’t allow ourselves to be beginners anymore. And that’s where we should start.
A few days ago, I was in a mall, and I participated in two dancing events. I was there for Latino dancing, especially salsa, but there were other dancing styles, such as tango and waltz.
It was my first-time dancing in a mall, and it was ok… At least until someone invited me to dance the waltz – I don’t even know the basic steps. As soon as I started moving my feet, I felt them shaking exactly the same as when I first spoke in front of people, back in 2012-2013.
But I calmed myself down quite fast and I started having fun.
This shift in focus from being stressed to having fun was fruitful. My legs started relaxing and I enjoyed the dance, even though I didn’t know what I was doing.
When we are beginners, the key is to remember to have fun and feel good while learning a new thing. Being stressed doesn’t help.
“But sometimes I find it hard having fun when the beginnings are to difficult.”
If this thought keeps popping up in your mind, it means you stress yourself more than you’re having fun. It means that your mind keeps focusing on your weaknesses. And while it may be helpful to have a critical sense of what is going on in your life, don’t let it kill your joy.
With love and optimism,
David
