The First One Will Be Awful

Creating things is difficult for me.

It's not necessarily even the creating part, even daring to believe that I can do something new that I've never done before can be hard.

The internet is full of perfection and highlight reels. If I become the fool by trying to do something new, there's a long line of joy-stealing comparisons that can be made with a quick search. Why risk going viral for bad work while you're learning? Will I ever improve? What's the point of even trying?

The first time I do anything, it's usually terrible. Any new pursuit tends to end up as an absolute mess of mistakes and quality problems.

The first few aren't even about doing the project well, they're just about starting something and calling something finished. Making the attempt is what matters. It's what takes me from wishing I had done something, to actually having done it.

Once it's finished, I can reflect on what I've learned. I now have "experience", though only a little. The ice has been broken, and I've now "done the thing." If no mistakes are being made, is something being learned? If mistakes are not recognized, recorded and remedied, are they providing lessons?

My code mentor had me write a C lexer every day from scratch for 3 weeks. I had a one hour time limit. I didn't finish the first few times. I focused too much on what wasn't important. I made a lot of mistakes. Then I started finishing the lexers, pushing a bit further every time. Then I tried new approaches, which I could evaluate with my newfound experience. I still made mistakes at the end, but these tended to be new mistakes which taught me in different ways.

At work this looks like "Get the thing to work. Stash it in version control. Now that I understand it better, rewrite it better for submitting." Prototypes and proofs of concept demonstrate a working system with working flows which can be refined.

Doing the reps teaches me about the problem and mistakes help me grow.