I am a mediocre writer. I repeat phrases. I use the same intro to each blog entry. I use bad grammar. It takes me 3 hours to write a 5 paragraph blog post about someone else’s book. It’s crystal clear in my head and then it fumbles out onto the keyboard. Writing is laborious.

Ya know what? I don’t give a shit. I’m going to keep doing it.

We have been trained to think that people who excel do so because of some natural inclination and that it comes easy. That is not always true. We think artists just inherently know how to draw. How to create. How to think abstractly. That is not always true. And we just know that failing—especially in a very public fashion—is one of the worst things that can happen. That most definitely is not true.

Yet we continue to allow this type of thinking to keep us from trying. We settle for the lesser choices in life. We accept our “limitations” because we believe in them more than we believe in ourself.

I’ve come to accept that in order to become good at whatever it is I’m here to do (On this blog. At my work. On this planet.) I have to put in the time and the effort. It won’t pay off immediately. It may not pay off for years. It may take years to become as good as I think and hope I can be. And I may never really get there.

That is OK. The only thing that matters is doing it. Suckily.

Yeah, I just made up that word.