By Arden Berry | Copy Editor
Recently, I was watching an old video of a YouTuber in his late 20s playing Minecraft for the first time. As someone who started playing when she was about 9 years old, the video was hilarious. Obviously you can’t successfully mine iron with a wooden pickaxe, so it seemed ridiculous when he tried to do it. At least, it seemed ridiculous to me, as I know this fact intuitively after years of playing.
But in reality, that game mechanic is not obvious. It’s something you learn through trial and error or by searching the Wiki online. As I thought about the video more, I remembered my first time playing Minecraft, when I kept trying to place blocks on top of carpet, or I couldn’t figure out how to open a door. There is a first time for everything, and no one is perfect at a new thing right away, so you should not expect yourself or anyone else to get everything right immediately.
The expectation that you’ll do a new thing perfectly right away is discouraging. According to a journal article by Gifted Education International, perfectionism can “paralyze future efforts.” Expecting that you will be perfect at a new activity replaces enjoyment with the fear that you’ll do it wrong.
When trying something new, you should do expect to do things wrong, and that expectation should be OK.
Taking that risk of doing something new imperfectly is worth the reward. According to a study on mice by the Columbia Zuckerman Institute, novelty facilitates learning and enables learning-associated plasticity, meaning that attempting to do something new improves your brain’s ability to keep learning. The more you try new things, the more you learn.
Giving others grace when they are trying something new is important as well. In high school, the best teachers were the ones who cared about their subjects but understood that they might be difficult for teenagers to understand at first. If you’ve been doing something for a long time, it’s easy to get stuck in your own mindset and to forget that there was a time that you were struggling to do it, too. According to a paper from Texas A&M University, the result of this mindset is called the “curse of knowledge.”
I have a new editor role at The Lariat now, so I’m experiencing both sides of being new. I’m still experiencing the learning curve of editing, and I’m watching the writers I edit for learn as well. I cringe a bit when I see an obvious Associated Press style error, but then I remember my confusion when I first saw a sample copy editing test in high school. I didn’t know the difference between 12 o’clock, 12 p.m., 12 pm and noon, let alone which answer was correct (it’s noon). It took time (pun intended) to figure it out.
Imperfection paired with a willingness to improve should be the expectation when trying something new. Step outside of yourself to understand how someone coming into a new subject with no prior experience might feel and be kind to yourself when trying something new as well.
