3 Mistakes You Make When You're Starting Out (& How to avoid them)

You know, some mistakes are almost unavoidable, especially when you're just starting out on a new project or business. It takes a lot of trial and error to get to a point where most things you start manage to hit the spot on a consistent basis. These are unavoidable mistakes you're bound to make, and how you can survive them.

Welcome to Alux! First of all, we've got to talk about unfounded extreme confidence. There's something very interesting that happens across the board throughout human history anytime anyone starts anything. You see, when your skill is zero, every tiny little bit of progress you make feels like a really big deal. When toddlers learn how to walk, they feel like the fastest humans alive. That's because their previous experience was literally dragging their tiny body across the floor, which, compared to this new walking skill, feels kind of slow and almost pathetic.

You see, anytime you start doing something new, your brain unlocks new pathways; it makes connections it's never made before. And that's why figuring something out for the first time almost feels like enlightenment. That's also why ideas are often symbolized by a light bulb. You feel your brain literally brightening up. It's an amazing feeling; it fills you with energy, motivation, and confidence— a very dangerous kind of confidence. Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than knowledge. This is something Charles Darwin said back in the day. In normy talk, this means that the less you know about something, the more confident you are in your ability.

This is what started the phrase, "Well, how hard could it really be?" Well, it turns out a lot harder than you thought. A couple of hundred years after Charles Darwin made that statement, a new paper gets published, a paper aptly called "Unskilled and Unaware of It." It proved that people with very little knowledge of a subject are confident and outspoken about said subject. This is something we now call the Dunning-Kruger effect.

There are two huge swings when you start learning something. The first swing is the overconfidence boost you get instantly. If you pick up a guitar, for example, it's not that hard to learn how to play a basic song. Most people can manage to do it in under an hour, and most people will get overconfident about it. I mean, they did learn how to play a song on the guitar in one hour with zero previous experience; they must be some sort of guitar prodigy. Then quickly, they move on to something more complicated, only to find themselves in an awkward position, in pain, and with clunky sounds coming out of the instrument.

This is where the second big swing happens, accurately called the valley of despair. It's the sudden realization that you actually suck, and you have absolutely no idea what you're doing. This is where you start to panic, and your confidence gets absolutely shattered. And this is where people make the first mistake: they quit too early. When the unavoidable valley of despair gets you with your pants down, your first reaction is, "Oh crap, I am not ready for this! I need to run before anyone sees me looking stupid."

And this is how projects get left unfinished, businesses bankrupt in three months, and no new skill is ever learned. You just don't stick to it long enough to make it out of the valley of despair. The Dunning-Kruger effect looks a lot like this: little knowledge creates huge confidence; but as you keep doing it, the impending doom of the valley of despair comes knocking. The question is: will you stick to it long enough to see it through, or not?

And this is actually the solution to avoid this kind of problem. You just need to be aware of it. Understand that your first contact will not paint the full picture, and you'll get overconfident. So get ready for the valley of despair, and stick to it. If you manage to get out of it, congratulations, my friend, because you've made it further than 90% of people.

Now, the next unavoidable mistake we want to talk about is you expect excitement, and you get met with the mundane. A new project is always exciting. You're working on this; you're building it; you are doing it, my friend! Yay you! But that excitement lasts about as long as the flavor of your chewing gum. Exciting at first? Sure, but it's gone before you know it, and you start thinking, "You know what? Maybe this isn't what I was hoping it to be." And that's the thing—there's a big difference between what you hope it to be and what it actually is.

You always hope for something exciting because it's in our nature to be optimistic, but that's not the reality that you're living in. You see, excitement is not a trait; there's nothing that's exciting by its own nature. It's just an emotional state that comes and goes, and the only influence you have on it is your attitude toward what you're doing. You see, even the most burning passion becomes just work when you have to do it.

And this is the second mistake you'll make: you'll believe that when passion becomes work and the excitement fades away, then it means you're doing something wrong, that this isn't for you, and you just fooled yourself until now. You might even say this is not your calling. Now, we're sure you've heard people say this, but there's a brutal truth here that people are choosing to ignore: consistent hard work is boring and tiresome. It's supposed to be that way. That's why so few people are actually doing it.

Do you think it's exciting to work 10 to 12 hours a day? Do you actually expect to be a motivational butterfly every morning? Do you believe this is an all-fun-and-games situation? Because it is definitely not. As a matter of fact, most days are tiresome because progress is slow. Things take time. Alux, welcome to the exciting world of actually trying to make something out of yourself.

Now, if we haven't managed to scare you off so far, then good! Okay, let's keep going because this begs the question: why do people get into this? Well, the answer is simple: what you might get in return cannot be obtained any other way. Everything worth having requires unimaginable amounts of effort, and everyone likes to think to themselves that they can handle it. Of course, you can work hard; of course, you can push through when things get hard; and of course, you can be patient when things are slow.

But look, like Mike Tyson said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. So how can you survive this? There's actually no secret or technique; you just have to go through it. You are supposed to have hard days. We all are. You're supposed to feel stuck sometimes, and stressed about things not working out as you would expect. It's supposed to feel way harder than taking a more traditional path because it is harder.

But going through this gives you the privilege to say, "This is not as easy as people think." You start to really connect with people who've gone through similar things. You're now a part of a very small group of individuals, and you get to have what most people only dream of.

We're going to hit you with some heavy stuff here. This is something people don't really like to talk about because, well, honestly, it's uncomfortable. When you muster the necessary courage and determination to build something on your own, you expect people to admire you, and they'll tell you that they do to your face. But deep down, they kind of hope that you'll fail because if you fail, they'll feel better about it. Overall, they won't have to face the reality that you won by taking the obviously harder path. They need to feel safe with themselves.

Your family might think you're crazy; your friends will question you. They'll ask you, "Are you sure this is going to work out? Or do you really think that stuff like this happens?" And you know what? Those are extremely valid questions; they are. But here's the thing: in every game, there are participants; at the end, there are winners and losers. But this game is different. In this game, you're a loser first and maybe a winner at the end.

The reality is, the moment you take the harder path, you automatically expose yourself to a losing scenario because, as you well know, most things kind of do fail. The worldwide success rate is pretty low. So statistically speaking, you're on a losing team. You could fool yourself by saying that you're on the "at least I tried" team, but then when was the last time someone got a reward for at least trying? This isn't kindergarten.

Okay, so you need to get ready to be a loser because that's where you'll be for the most part, until things start to actually happen for you. You'll be the over-ambitious kid with foolish dreams, and you'll be okay with that because, hey, you would rather deal with losing than deal with all of those what-ifs that come from never trying.

We hope you learn something valuable here today, Alux. And as a closing thought, nothing can prepare you for what comes next if you decide to start on this journey. In a way, it's the modern take of going on an adventure. It's going to be a wild ride, and we hope each and every one of you eventually finds your own adventure. Until next time, my friend, take care.