CBP S1E5: Don’t Be Afraid of Hard Work

“Starting out being terrible, is what eventually makes you great.” This is from Tyler Larson, founder of Music is Win, and he says this in a YouTube video about playing guitar. My husband, who is working on his guitar playing, came across this and shared it with me. I was inspired to talk about hard work, and how we should not be afraid of something that is hard, we should try it anyway!

Resources referenced in this episode:

• Tyler Larson | Music is Win: If You Think You SUCK At Guitar, Watch This
• Angela Duckworth | Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance [affiliate link]

Related articles:

• How to Fail Like a Champ
• Introduction to Growth Mindset
• How to Create Your Mission Statement
• Goals Workshop

Transcript

This week, I’m talking about haaaaaard work! Hard work is hard! None of us like it – well, maybe some of us do. A lot of us don’t like it, a lot of us don’t like hard work. 

My husband was recently inspired to start learning to play guitar. Well, he has played guitar for a number of years, but he wants to get better. And he came across a YouTube by a guy named Tyler Larson, who started a YouTube channel called “Music is Win”. And in this particular YouTube video that I’m going to put in the description, Tyler talks about how learning to play guitar is hard, but it’s being bad, in the beginning, that makes you great. 

And that really inspired me to talk about grit, and how grit, and a dedication and perserverance towards your passions will get you what you want, but not without hard work. 

So, I think people look at something that’s hard, and they get discouraged. And I know that I myself, in the past, like in my twenties, thirties, I thought, you know, “love shouldn’t be this hard” or “relationships shouldn’t be this hard, if it was meant to be, it would be easy” if, you know, it was supposed to happen it would just happen, and all that kind of stuff. And the reality is that, nothing worth having is easy. 

And I think that, deep down, we don’t value things that are easy as much as we value things that are hard to accomplish. So when you work really hard at something, and it turns out well and it’s something you can be proud of, you’re more proud of that, and value it much more, than something that was really easy for you. It didn’t take a lot of effort, it was just “oh yeah, it almost happened by itself.”. So how can you be proud of that when it just happened by itself?

So, back to my husband, he’s learning how to play guitar. And he has days where, he’ll play for a couple hours, and he gets discouraged because he feels like he sucks. And I don’t have a musical ear, I can’t – I mean, I can tell that he’s improving, but I can’t really tell the difference between somebody that plays really, really good, and somebody that plays really, really excellent. I know there’s certain types of music I like to listen to, and that’s about it. But he knows that he is not as good as he wants to be yet. 

So he found this video by Tyler Larson, and Tyler starts this video by saying, “Starting out being terrible, is what eventually makes you great.” And he goes on to talk about how, all the guitar greats didn’t start out knowing everything, they all started somewhere, everybody starts by sucking, but he puts it in a context that is not just about guitar playing. It’s about anything that you want to do in your life that is hard. And you’re going to suck in the beginning, I mean, that’s just the reality. Anybody who has learned something new will tell you, you’re not going to be able to just sit down and be great. And it’s going to take hard work, and you should not be afraid of that hard work. Because that’s how you learn, that’s how you grow, and that’s how you ultimately get better. 

Another thing to think about when you’re thinking about “oh man, this is so hard” is that something being hard doesn’t mean you’ll never be able to do it, it doesn’t mean it’ll always be hard, and it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try it. I think really, why people get discouraged or turned off when something is hard, is because we’re afraid we’re not going to be good, we’re afraid we’re going to fail. And it’s, it’s just truth that if you practice, you will get better. At anything. At anything! Even something I’m not naturally talented at, like for example, drawing, or playing music! I don’t know how to play any instruments, really. But if that was something I was passionate about, and if I was willing to dedicate the hours and hours of work that were needed, if I practiced, I would get better. I might not ever get as good as people that do it for a living, or people that have a lot more natural talent than me, but there’s no denying that if I sat down, and practiced, and I did it religiously, and I did it and I put in the hard work and the effort, that I would get better. 

And that’s, I think, the crux of the matter. We talked a little bit, my husband and I, we talked a little bit about why people don’t believe that. And I think part of it is, in order to put that level of practice into something, that level of commitment, requires that you are passionate about it. You have to find something that is worth – where the rewards that will come out of this improvement or practice, are worth it to you. And then you will find your motivation to do those things. 

So I hear a lot of people in their twenties, and people that don’t really know what they want to do with their lives, and they feel like they don’t know what their purpose is, and I think part of that is, they just haven’t found their passions yet. They haven’t found that thing that they’re willing to dedicate that much time and effort into. 

So another book that I want to point you towards, that ties into everything that I’ve been talking about and Tyler was talking about in the video that I will also put in the description, is Grit: The Power of Passion and Perserverance [affiliate link]. And it’s by a lady named Angela Duckworth, and I just, I just love this book! I read it, and it speaks to me in a lot of different ways, maybe you guys will like it too. You can get it on Amazon, I’ll put a link in the description, but it talks a lot about being passionate about what you go after, and then not giving up once you’ve decided on your passion, and coming up with goals, and it talks a lot about some of the same topics that I’ve talked about in terms of goals before, so you just might really enjoy it. I think that’s about all I had for you today! If you want to reach out, please do so, you can subscribe to my mailing list at www.coffeegritandinspiration.com/subscription. I hope you have a wonderful week, and I’ll talk to you soon! Bye now!