Being a beginner – why it’s a gift and how scary it is to me…

Ever since I can remember I was afraid of doing something wrong. I’m not sure where this fear came from, but it has been with me for a long time without me truly recognizing it as such. I’m not a fearful person in general but I want to share this revelation I had about two years ago when I was contemplating what to do during my upcoming vacation.

I was searching the internet for something fun to do since I had no one to join me and no specific destination to travel to in mind. After googling “yoga retreat” for hours and hours I stumbled upon an offering for a five-day introductory course for mountaineering in the swiss alps. It sounded perfect, not too far to travel, all organized group activity, being out in nature all day and learning something new. My brain however went directly to the one and only thought: “But I don’t know anything about mountaineering and for sure will make mistakes!”.

Let that sink in for a minute, I was extremely worried about the fact I didn’t know anything about a topic I was contemplating to sign up to an introductory course for, with no prerequisite except basic fitness. It took me a full five days to find the courage to finally sign up and spoiler alert: It was one of the best decisions of my life thus far!

Jon Kabat-Zinn wrote about exactly this topic in his book Mindfulness for beginners. The first chapter which is only two pages long and is called beginners mind references Suzuki Röshi who once said: ” In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities in the expert’s mind there are few”. This quote resonated a lot with me at that time and still does. In context of this quote Jon Kabat-Zinn talks about how beginners can approach new experiences with much less preconceived opinions than an expert and how this leads to a much more creative spirit. He mentions also how enriching this beginners mind can be to our lives if we learn how to maintain this creative energy even when we slowly become more experienced in a certain area. This was the first time I even thought about being a beginner in a positive context and for some reason this quote stuck with me ever since.

Now why is this relevant and worth even writing about? First, I had a great time during this mountaineering course and would highly recommend. Secondly and more importantly I see this moment in time as a landmark for myself when I started to embrace and appreciate being a beginner. I did not realize it at the time, but it was a very important step for me to shed some of this fear of doing something wrong and it opened a whole new world of adventures for me. It helped me to start believing I could do something extraordinary if I only started with the first step and leave the fears and doubts behind.