
Permission to Suck - rishi
http://www.kadavy.net/blog/posts/permission-to-suck/
======
ebiester
This is where my startup failed -- We made the decision to work in a new
technology (then another!) but I was afraid of writing code I was less than
proud of.

I then proceeded to learn what I could of best practices, spending far too
long experimenting with the language and far too little actually doing. In the
end, we ended up with two half-baked infrastructures in two different
languages and reached the trough of disillusionment before anything we could
show to be disillusioned about!

It's something that I've learned in other parts of my life, especially through
writing, but have never quite managed in coding. The primary tenet of National
Novel Writing Month is that to finish a rough draft of a long fiction work,
you must, starter to professional, give yourself permission to suck, to write
something you know is sometimes horrible. You do this so that you have a
canvas to fix during editing, to find nuggets that you love, and can revise,
and can work with.

Intellectually, I know this about programming as well, but I always have this
twinge of guilt when implementing it, and go back to my old ways. The irony is
that in larger projects, this can be a useful quality. Having someone on the
team that can go back and look at the code, showing exactly where we need to
improve before we ship is useful. In solo projects it is often disaster.

At least for me. :)

~~~
criswell
I suffer from this as well. It's called Analysis Paralysis. Now, I just need
to figure out the best way to stop it.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analysis_paralysis>

~~~
sehrope
Best fix I've found is iterative development. No better way to learn something
then to try to directly apply what you're trying to learn. Build it. If it
sucks, build it again. Repeat as necessary till it's 'good enough'.

------
UnoriginalGuy
Do you know what I like about HNs compared to other sites (e.g. Reddit, /.,
etc)?

It is constructive. There are a bunch of people who are interested in self
improvement, trying things, failing, and then picking themselves up and trying
again.

That's rare. You don't find that in many communities. Most of the time it is
just negativity and "you can't," "you shouldn't," "here are all the flaws,"
etc.

Hopefully this grouping of people and ideas will help all of us in some way,
they do say that it is the people you surround yourself with...

~~~
levesque
Well reddit is also a lot of this when you dig in the smaller communities.
Sure, if you stay on r/AdviceAnimals you are bound to be disappointed ;)

~~~
UnoriginalGuy
There are tons of cool communities but none that I've found yet about starting
a small business or similar. If you know of any along the same themes as HN
then I'd love to join them.

~~~
tspike
/r/startups /r/Entrepreneur /r/smallbusiness

... of course, you'll find plenty of reposts from HN.

------
thenomad
This is a well-worn piece of advice, but it's well-worn for a reason - because
it's incredibly valuable.

Observing a lot of my friends over a lot of years, I'm starting to suspect
that the willingness to fail, and particularly to fail in public, is possibly
the key differentiator for people who achieve impressive things.

(I'm currently learning a new skill myself. I was sucking very badly, I'm now
just sucking pretty badly, and I'm enjoying the progress.)

~~~
kadavy
> particularly to fail in public

This reminds me of when I learned to dance Salsa, and more recently, Tango.

It's a far more public failure than writing a blog post. Your body – the very
thing that experiences the embarrassment of failure – is your instrument when
dancing. To add insult to injury, you're failing in front of a never-ending
stream of women.

But, thankfully, sucking is temporary and life is long.

EDIT: I'd like to add that life is much, much, better when you know how to
dance.

~~~
thenomad
Yes. I had a similar experience when I tried to learn to dance, some time ago.
The "right, now go and dance freestyle with Random Attractive Woman #1" moment
was particularly terrifying.

(I still can't dance very well.)

------
vidar
Many branches of meditation are based on the idea that there is no way to suck
at meditating. Simply observe the thoughts arise and fade away.

If you are trying to succeed at meditating you are working against your self.

~~~
irollboozers
This is why I hilariously love meditation. The goal is to suck at meditating,
because there is no goal.

------
zobzu
In a nutshell: humans learn, live, and eventually succeed via a simple try-
fail-try-again process.

If you can't suck, you can't fail. If you can't fail, you can't learn, you
can't progress.

In most corporate places, you're not allowed to fail. Most will refuse
changes, even if it's for the better, because, it may suck. It may fail.

So yeah. If you wanna be great, you gotta suck.

------
minikites
I found this out on my own in some sense, but I still have trouble putting it
into practice.

I was taking guitar lessons and I would always be afraid to bring in side
tunes I had been working on because I thought they were terrible (and they
are) but it's tough to give yourself permission to suck when doing nothing
hurts a lot less.

~~~
kadavy
I've been playing guitar for 13 years, and I still am not very good.

A breakthrough for me though, was when I stopped obsessing over getting every
note right, and instead focused on strumming the right chords. Then, I found
playing much more enjoyable, and it was easier to play whole songs and sing.

Once I got that down, I was able to move on to more complex things. Like many
things, it helps to embrace your suckage with musical instruments.

~~~
biscarch
Randomly connected, but the game Rocksmith takes this approach. It'll give you
points if you get the strumming correct, but are fretting 2/5 notes correctly.
There's a huge focus on "get as much as you can right now, but we're going to
keep throwing this at you until you get it right."

------
batgaijin
No! Meditation is not about thinking about nothing! It's about focusing on
your breath. Think only about breathing.

That sounds boring but manageable. 'Thinking about nothing' seems impossible
and stupid at the same time; people who do the disservice of saying that
should be slapped.

The point of meditation is to learn how to control your thoughts, specifically
in being able to realize that your are choosing your current train of thought,
and that you can switch it at any time. If you are stuck worrying, or being
sad, or unable to see the richness in something, it's most likely because you
can't properly focus on the only thing you'll ever have in life: this moment.

~~~
zkoch
There are many goals to meditation. Sometimes it starts with focusing on your
breath. Sometimes it's in the form of chanting. Depends on the school of
thought, the individual, the goal (if you have one). It's not valid to say
"No!" as though what he's proposing is wrong.

~~~
civilian
No!

While you & the author are technically right, batgaijin is saying that it's
bad advice for beginners to be told "think of nothing".

------
prezjordan
This especially resonated with me. I wrote about a similar topic [1] a few
weeks ago, but being a college student - I love this "permission to suck"
idea. It gives me the ability to stop being ashamed of my crappy projects,
knowing that I'll get better. I find most college students simply don't work
on stuff outside of school - probably because they don't give themselves
permission to suck - and it really affects their abilities in the long run.

[1]: <http://jscal.es/2012/10/12/you-oughta-be-ashamed/>

------
aufreak3
I used to refer to this in some conversations as the "permission to be less
than perfect", but "permission to suck" is crisper :)

The "permission to suck" pill needs to be taken along with the "desire to
improve" pill. In other words, pay less attention to your current state and
more to the trajectory - i.e. where you're heading. If the heading is right,
then it is only a matter of time before you reach an arbitrary benchmark of
your choosing.

------
erikpukinskis
I tell people all the time: you get good at things you enjoy sucking at.

