Don’t Worry About Being an Expert

Don’t Worry About Being an Expert

When learning a new skill, you don’t have to worry about “mastering” the skill or becoming an “expert.”

Say you don’t know how to paint, but want to learn. Here’s the absolute worst way to go about it: compare your current level of ability (below average 3rd grader) with Picasso, Michelangelo, or any of your favorite Pinterest artist. Anything that you produce will look like garbage in comparison, so why bother?

Even worse, you may have heard that it takes “10,000 hours” to master a skill. That’s at least 4 hours of practice every single day for almost 7 years. Who has time for that?!

Here’s the thing: you probably don’t need to be an expert.

Skill acquisition is tied up in many ways with social status: being good at something is a status signal, so our brains track our perceived competence vs. others constantly. When you don’t think you’re as good as other people at something, it’s common to feel self-conscious, and your mind starts looking for ways to protect your fragile ego from feelings of inferiority.

That’s why you get so uptight when you try to learn something new: your brain kicks into social comparison mode, even though it’s unnecessary at best, and counterproductive at worst.

Most of the time, you don’t need to be an expert – you just need to practice enough to get the results you want, whatever they might be. Comparing yourself against other people during the beginning stages of skill acquisition is wasted energy, and it’s a very real barrier to improving your skills.

In the vast majority of cases, people decide to pick up a new skill to either (1) get a particular valuable result or (2) have fun. That’s it. Social comparison is meaningless – who cares what other people can do if you’re able to get the results you want?

When you decide to learn something new, you’re not competing against other people: you’re competing against your own previous lack of ability, and any improvement is a win. Once you grok that early phase skill acquisition isn’t a competition, leveling up your skills and abilities becomes much, much easier.