Yesterday, my friends took me to their local rock climbing gym here in Denver.
I’m deathly afraid of heights. As in: when I look down and see nothing between the ground and my feet, I lose physical control of my body.
It was nerve-wracking and exhilarating watching my friends climb up the 50-foot wall, seemingly with ease.
Naturally, I started small. Just some low-level bouldering.
It was challenging, exhausting, and exciting. I would slip and fall off close to the top of my little 12-foot wall and my competitive nature wanted to jump right back on it and try again.
It was a humbling reminder:
With anything you want to do in life, you have to start on day 1.
Most people are afraid of the discomfort of the early days of improvement.
You could embarrass yourself. Everyone else is an expert and you have no clue. You don’t belong here.
But that’s all nonsense.
Anyone who’s better than you at anything…they started on day 1. The only difference is that now they’re on like day 1149 and you haven’t started yet.
So if you want to improve, start. Then do it more. Do it a lot. Get really fucking good at it.
Eventually, someone will look at you and think, I could never do that.
Then you’ll gently remind them that you were there too once.
One day, I’ll climb that 50-foot wall and talk about how I used to be terrified of heights.