Want to see how far you’ve come? Lean into the cringe!

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you start something new, then keep at it, you’ll get better.

Things might not feel that way, mind.

You can feel embarrassed and exposed when starting something brand-spanking new, like salsa-dancing, or speaking Japanese, or meme-painting (yes, it’s a ‘thing’.)  You can forget that, actually, you’re supposed to be a bit rubbish at this.

It’s especially easy to forget all that when your social-media feeds are full of other people’s sparkly ‘ta-da!’ moments, rather than their mistakes.  Though I know which I’d find more entertaining and learn-worthy.

In 2020, I shared a blog post that included a screenshot of a short story I’d written in 2006, way before I became an ‘official’ writer.  I’d just joined a creative writing class at my local college, and that story was my first assignment.

Back then, I thought the story was OK.  Passable.  I enjoyed writing it so much that I carried on writing, and I haven’t stopped.  But it’s a good thing I didn’t know then what I know now: that that story is awful.  I cringe every time I read it.

Embrace the cringe

So why did I include part of that cringey old story in a brand-new blog post?

Because, dear reader, the cringe is good.  It’s a sign of how far I’ve come as a writer.

If you think back to the early days of doing something you care about, you’ll probably recall plenty of cringe-worthy moments.  But instead of letting your mind skim over them, lean into the cringe.

It’s showing you just how much better you’ve become.

“Getting better at things requires work.” (Scott H. Young, writer and ultra-learner)

Learning something new isn’t easy.  It takes hard work and lots of time, so you’ll need all the shiny progress-reminders you can get.  Even the embarrassing ones.

To illuminate this point even further, here’s a little story about my best friend, who is a brilliant cake-maker.  She started her home-based business a few years before Covid hit, in a haze of uncertainty.  She loved baking, but she wasn’t convinced that anyone would pay her to make a cake for them.

But they did.

Not that she didn’t have her own cringe-worthy moments along the way.

Here’s a picture of her very first attempt at making a paid-for ‘happy anniversary’ cake (though I hasten to add that the finished cake did look a little bit better than this!):

And here’s a picture of her latest creation, for a 21^st birthday party.  I won’t pretend to know what film it’s from, but it looks like a contender for the TV show Is It Cake?

The second photo caused social-media shenanigans, with a few minor celebrities even throwing it a Like.  But my perfectionist friend refused to believe her cake looked as good as everybody said it did…

…until we started scrolling through her social-media photos of yore, which offered visual evidence of how much she’s grown as a baker.

“I would never have been able to make a cake like that when I was just starting out,” she mused later on, over a well-earned cuppa.  “I’d have been scared to even try it.”

Well, quite.

Fancy creating some cringe-worthy moments of your own?

If you’ve always wanted to write, but you’re put off by the prospect of not being very good, I hope the examples I’ve shared have reassured you.

Not being very good is a) likely, and b) nothing to be scared of, as long as you’re prepared to keep on writing and learning.

Because the chances are, you’re going to get much, much better.

So why not give it a go?

And if you’d like some help – whether that’s regular mentoring or a focused, one-off ‘power’ session – I’m here.