Your first 100 tries are supposed to be bad

Present Principle: On digging through the dirt to get to the gold

James Dyson working on an early prototype.

I’ve been putting off recording videos for months.

Not because I can’t. I’ve done it before, I know I can stand in front of a camera. It’s that every time I sit down to start, something stops me. I plan instead. I clean my notes instead. I tell myself I’m not ready yet. And another week goes by with nothing recorded.

If you make things, you know this feeling. The gap between wanting to do the work and actually starting it. That gap has a name, and Steven Pressfield calls it Resistance.

One trick of Resistance is to tell yourself you’re not good enough yet. That you will be smarter and better in the future. You’re not ready yet. That’s a lie.

We have to relearn this: The first ones are supposed to be bad. There is no way around it. You will not wake up one day and be ready and be great.

Your first hundred videos are probably bad. Your first hundred posts, your first drafts, your first shots on goal, your first songs. Most people don’t know this, so when their early attempts come out clumsy, they take it as proof they’re not talented and they stop. They quit exactly at the point where everyone has to start.

The ones “who make it” aren’t the ones who were good early. They’re the ones who kept going through the bad part, long enough to find their voice, their rhythm, their people.

James Dyson built 5127 prototypes of his vacuum before he got one right. Five thousand, one hundred and twenty six failures. Five years of it. He’s a designer, like me, and his whole story is just refusing to stop digging.

Dyson called the inventor’s life “one of failure.” It’s the same, he says, for writers and filmmakers and anyone making things. It takes a long time before you find the one that works, and you just have to get used to that.

In short, you have to dig a lot of dirt to get to the gold. And the only way to it is through. Not around. Through.

Writers have a version of this rule. One crappy page a day. Not one good page, one crappy page. Because the quality of any single page isn’t yours to control. The only thing you control is that you showed up and made it, without judging the result.

I’m taking my own medicine. I’ve blocked fixed times to record, and the rule is simple. Press play. Make the bad video. One a day if I can. I’m not allowed to script it into perfection, I’m not allowed to wait until I feel ready. The goal for the first few months isn’t to be good. The goal is to stay consistent and keep trying. The good comes later, and it only comes if I stay in it.

This one is as much a reminder to myself as it is to you.

Please don’t give up on your Thing because the early attempts are rough. They’re meant to be! That’s not failure, that’s the dirt you dig through. Just keep going. Keep shoveling.

What’s your dirt, and what’s the gold worth digging for?

---

This is part of the upcoming framework and book I’m writing to help as many people as possible. It’s called Stop Postponing Yourself: Do The Thing. A Modern Maker Manifesto and is now available for pre-ordering. There are still a few spots left for the Early Bird Offer.

---

If you want to join a supportive group of 264 makers from all around the world, check out our Present Space. We are meeting in the Consistency Club every two weeks to talk about the bliss and struggles of getting closer to our Favorite Unrealized Projects.

---