Remember You Are in Kindergarten

"When you start doing very difficult things for the first time, remember you are in kindergarten. Nobody is successful in kindergarten."
(from my tweets, 2015)

I wrote a lot about what starting out felt like. I tweeted that starting out, "you're just learning to make a fist," that I had no idea how much failing you need to do, and that I had never been the best at anything starting out.

The kindergarten tweet puts it best, because it gives beginners permission to be beginners. Nobody expects a five-year-old to write a novel. Yet when adults try something new, we often expect to be good at it right away, and feel embarrassed when we aren't.

That embarrassment keeps a lot of people from ever starting. The research on beginners suggests it doesn't have to.

Nobody is watching as closely as you think

One reason being a beginner feels so uncomfortable is that we imagine everyone is noticing our mistakes.

In a well-known 2000 study, Thomas Gilovich, Victoria Medvec and Kenneth Savitsky asked college students to walk into a room full of peers while wearing an embarrassing T-shirt with the face of singer Barry Manilow. Afterward, the students guessed that about half the people in the room had noticed the shirt. In fact, only about a quarter had.

The researchers called this the spotlight effect: we overestimate how much others notice our appearance and our actions. When you stumble through your first guitar lesson or your first presentation, people are paying far less attention than you fear.

Beginners need encouragement, experts need criticism

Another study suggests beginners should treat themselves differently from experts.

In 2012, Stacey Finkelstein and Ayelet Fishbach studied how people at different levels respond to feedback. In one study, they looked at students in beginner and advanced French classes. Beginners preferred instructors who focused on what they were doing well. Advanced students preferred instructors who pointed out their mistakes.

The researchers explained that beginners are still deciding whether they're committed to something. Positive feedback tells them it's worth continuing. Experts are already committed, so criticism helps them improve.

So when you're in kindergarten, it's not weakness to need encouragement. It's what helps beginners keep going.

Watch out for the beginner's bubble

There is one trap to avoid, though. Being a beginner isn't only about humility.

In 2018, Carmen Sanchez and David Dunning had people learn a new task: diagnosing diseases in a simulated world of "zombies." At the very start, people were appropriately cautious. But after just a little experience, their confidence shot up much faster than their actual skill. The researchers called this the beginner's bubble.

So the kindergarten mindset works both ways. It means not expecting too much of yourself at the start. It also means remembering, a few lessons in, that you're still a beginner and have a lot left to learn.

What the philosophers said

The Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki opened his book Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind (1970) with a line that has been quoted ever since: "In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert's there are few."

For Suzuki, the goal was not to stop being a beginner as quickly as possible. It was to keep a beginner's openness even as you gained skill: curious, unhurried and free of the need to prove anything.

Long before him, Socrates was famous for a similar attitude. In Plato's Apology, Socrates explains why the oracle called him the wisest man in Athens. It wasn't that he knew more than others. It was that he didn't think he knew what he didn't know.

Some honest caveats

The spotlight effect studies were done mostly with college students in short experiments. The feedback study looked at specific settings, like language classes, and the best kind of feedback surely depends on the person and the task. And while beginners deserve patience, some new skills do carry real risks, like driving or surgery, where getting good quickly matters.

But for most things we're afraid to try, the evidence is reassuring: people notice less than we think, encouragement helps beginners stick with it, and some humility protects us from overconfidence.

How to be a happy beginner

• Expect to be bad at first. It's kindergarten. That's how everyone starts.
• Remember the spotlight effect. Others are paying far less attention to your mistakes than you think.
• Seek encouragement early. Find a teacher, friend or group who will notice what you're doing well.
• Ask for criticism later. Once you're committed, honest feedback becomes more useful.
• Stay humble a few lessons in. Watch out for the beginner's bubble.
• Keep a beginner's mind. Even when you get good, stay curious.

Today's reflection

What is something you've wanted to try but haven't, because you were afraid of looking like a beginner? What would happen if you gave yourself permission to be in kindergarten?

Sources

• Finkelstein, S. R., & Fishbach, A. (2012). Tell me what I did wrong: Experts seek and respond to negative feedback. Journal of Consumer Research, 39(1), 22–38.
• Gilovich, T., Medvec, V. H., & Savitsky, K. (2000). The spotlight effect in social judgment: An egocentric bias in estimates of the salience of one's own actions and appearance. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 78(2), 211–222.
• Plato. Apology, 21d.
• Sanchez, C., & Dunning, D. (2018). Overconfidence among beginners: Is a little learning a dangerous thing? Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 114(1), 10–28.
• Suzuki, S. (1970). Zen Mind, Beginner's Mind. Weatherhill.