A blog post by Elena Overfield | Formerly Pepetoe

This last year, I recently realised something slightly ridiculous about myself. I think I’ve always hated being bad at thing – not disliked it, actually hated it.

I think about being the quiet kid at holiday camps who didn’t want to participate in games while everybody else seemed to throw themselves into them. For years, I’ve remembered that as “I wasn’t sporty”. Except that doesn’t quite add up considering how enormous sport eventually became in my life! So, maybe there was something else happening too. Maybe I didn’t want to participate because participating created the possibility of being visibly bad at something.

Not trying is surprisingly safe

If I don’t try, nobody can watch me fail. If I don’t put myself forward, nobody can reject me. If I don’t attempt something I’m bad at, nobody gets to discover I’m bad at it. Perfectionism doesn’t always look like somebody obsessively doing everything perfectly.

Sometimes perfectionism looks like avoidance. You only participate in the things where you feel competent. You stick to identities you understand. You become very good at certain things and increasingly terrified of being a beginner anywhere else.

Being bad at something isn’t a moral failing

This sounds fucking obvious, yet I think I genuinely needed to learn it. I am allowed to do something badly. I am allowed to look stupid. I am allowed to try something and discover I’m average. I am allowed to enjoy something without turning it into an achievement. Not everything needs a PB. Not everything needs an outcome. Not every hobby needs to become content, progress or proof of something. Sometimes I can just do something because it’s fun.

I want to become a beginner again

There’s something freeing about accepting “of course I’m shit at this. I’ve never done it before.” That’s literally how learning works. The people who look effortless now once had absolutely no idea what they were doing. So, maybe confidence isn’t walking into every situation believing I’ll be brilliant. Maybe confidence is walking in knowing I might be terrible and thinking: I’ll survive that.

Because being bad at something doesn’t make me bad. Failing doesn’t make me a failure. And perhaps I’ve missed enough experiences because I was frightened of looking stupid. I’d quite like some of them back.