Let’s look at two different people.
They both want to be amazing piano players. We’ll call them Matt and Clara.
Matt doesn’t like doing anything he’s not naturally good at.
“I could never get good at piano,” he complains. “I’m just not a musical person.”
So what happens?
He doesn’t buy a keyboard. He doesn’t sit at that keyboard to practice 10 minutes a day. And he never learns a single chord or scale.
A year later, Matt has absolutely zero piano skills.
“See,” he tells himself. “I was right.”
Meanwhile, Clara loves jumping into uncharted waters. Being a student and starting from scratch excites her. She sees her lack of skill as a blank canvas ready to be painted.
She goes on Facebook Marketplace and buys a starter keyboard for $40.
She plays this cheap keyboard on most days. Sometimes for two minutes, sometimes for two hours.
She gets frustrated by her lack of talent. But she never lets that stop her from practicing each week.
Some days she feels growth. Her finger dexterity improves. She learns some of her favorite songs. She can go from chord to chord faster and smoother.
Some days it feels like she’s getting worse. She makes more mistakes than usual. She doesn’t feel like practicing. Playing gives her a headache.
But she keeps going.
A year later, she’s 100 times better than she was when she started. She’s not incredible. But she can sit down at a piano at her friend’s house and just start playing.
She knows Clocks by Coldplay by heart. She impresses her friends. And she upgrades to a $600 keyboard with weighted keys.
Matt believed he couldn’t be a piano player. He was right.
Clara believed she could be a piano player. She was right.
Podcasting. Making YouTube videos. Running a business…
A year from now, you can say one of two things:
“I wish I started a year ago,” or
“I can’t believe I’ve been doing this for a year.”
Pull the trigger. Buy the cheap keyboard and start practicing.
So here’s a question…
If you worked on your thing every day for the next 365 days, who would you be by the end of it?