Where to begin when you feel awkward or incompetent at something new

The road to saying yes to something in your life can be a long one.

But once you do, it’s showtime.

Making a change—starting a new journey, project, business, heck; starting over, in any part of life—requires us to do things we don’t always want to do, because they don’t feel routine, familiar or natural.

Learning to make the unnatural feel natural takes a great deal of practice.

What feels more natural to you, sitting on the couch or running five miles?

It’s natural for us to do what feels natural. It makes life easier, reduces conflict, and well…it’s how we’re wired, naturally.

This is why we envy talent; natural-born athletes or musicians or leaders. They make it look so easy, and there are so few of them.

Then there’s the rest of us.

If you want to make a change, learn a skill or reach your goals, you have to do things that are uncomfortable. Unnatural.

Like wake up at 5am to go run, or hit the gym at 5pm.

But real life can get much harder than that.

Some things can be learned relatively quickly because you start from a base of what you already know. Excelling in your job as a lawyer might come with challenges, but it’s a lot easier when you have a law degree than when you don’t.

But in many areas of life, learning, failing, and learning from failing is really the only way to go. For most of us, this can be scary and uncomfortable.

This road can take a long time too, testing your patience and faith every step of the way. The great sushi master chefs or yoga gurus practice their craft for years before earning their title. Adjusting to losing someone close to you is hardly an overnight process; neither is building a good relationship.

For something to feel natural in the long run, you have to do many unnatural things in the short run.

Mastering the unnatural is the bridge you have to cross to get to the other side.

If you feel awkward or incompetent when doing them, then welcome to the club.

You’re on the bridge. This is the process. This is how you will make it natural, and to everyone else, you will make it look easy.