Be Brave Enough to be Bad at Something New - Andrea

By Andrea

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“Be brave enough to be bad at something new!”

As I was looking for a quote to use on an IG post the other night I stumbled on this. Now very often I will choose to use a quote on a post when its been a busy day and creating a whole post just seems like a huge task. This day was exactly that, I started the post while I was rocking my youngest to bed and needed to just do something simple. Well, this turned into anything but simple. About 20 minutes in and a full paragraph later, I realized that maybe this is better suited for a blog!

So here we are.

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To me, this is a very straight forward message. And it speaks volumes to me! I am 30 years old and can now openly admit I quit things, or used to, or maybe sometimes still do or really really want to! Especially things that take time to evolve and learn. I had a moment a few years back where I surprised myself by saying these words out loud and acknowledging for the first time this trait about myself. What surprised me even more, was the first time I ever put it out there, I said it to Asif. I remember the day exactly. We decided that the time had come for me to make the transition from his assistant to becoming a boudoir photographer.

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I was excited, I was nervous, I secretly thought ooook we’ll see how long this lasts. When we had just finished one of my very first pieces of training, I was standing with Asif in the studio, camera in hand, thinking, “What have I done? What have I taken on? How am I going to get through this? And what in the world is an f-stop??” At that moment the words just started coming out of my mouth. I told him something along the lines of, “If I actually do this, stick with it, and don’t give up I will be shocked.” In true Asif fashion, he simply said, “Tell me more about that.” Gahh, ok, put me on the spot to explain something I have never said and barely have admitted to myself. Well, I stumbled through some attempt of explaining to him about how I don’t like taking on new things I am not immediately good at. Especially things that aren’t black and white. I don’t do well with the grey area where there is room for interpretation . . . and again what is an f-stop?? Now you probably want to know how Asif responded to this . . . and I wish I could tell you . . . maybe he remembers? I think the reason I can’t remember his exact words though is because in a sense it simply didn’t matter. All that matters is that his words were encouraging. Letting me have a sense of knowing it’s ok to work through this.

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So if I was going to commit myself to not quitting I needed to find my own words and willpower. I said the words, I have admitted it to myself, now what? I knew my love for boudoir photography was real, I loved everything it represents, I loved the process, the clients, and I loved how it made me feel when I was the client. I knew that if I could be part of that process for clients as the photographer it would be getting to experience that high every time. But could I be a photographer? Did I have it in me not to quit? A light bulb goes off, ok . . .new goal . . . just don’t quit . . . this became a whole different thing now, my goal was to simply relax and just not quit.

“I knew my love for boudoir photography was real, I loved everything it represents, I loved the process, the clients, and I loved how it made me feel when I was the client.”

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So I just started showing up and as I showed up, I learned and as I learned, I became less fearful of quitting. It's funny because the more I focused on my goal, to not quit, the more I was able and willing to learn! I was at the brink of really being pushed out of the nest and being on my own, so to speak, when life events happened and my family and the Ali family became very close, leaning on each other for support. Hello, universe nice to see you again. Well, now I had zero room for excuses, I had more support than I ever could have imagined and basically, there was absolutely no way I could quit now! The series of events that followed honestly probably couldn’t have been or wouldn’t have been possible without this coming together of families! I was allowed to just keep going, to keep learning and no one around me was going to let me quit, at least not without a solid fight.

“I was allowed to just keep going, to keep learning and no one around me was going to let me quit at least not without a solid fight. ”

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This came at a perfect time, I had already invested in myself and at this point wasn’t afraid of quitting but rather I was afraid of how do I take this to the next level? All the support around me gave me the confidence to start exploring that. How do I make the switch from giving my whole career story when asked what my profession is to simply saying “I am boudoir photographer” and feeling confident that this is what I am? For a long time the only way I could feel confident saying that was to feel like my proficiency level was where I felt it needed to be. So I never said it. I always followed it up with a “but”. It's taken me so long to understand that this whole being brave to be bad at something new is basically never-ending. Just when I start to feel too comfortable it means it’s time to start being bad at something new again. The more I do this the more proficient I can become.

I still loathe tackling something I am not good at, I still know there will be a little inner battle to quit or push through. The difference now is I know I am not going to quit. I have found it in myself to be brave, brave enough to admit that not quitting will be hard, brave enough to reflect inward, and brave enough to be bad at first. But most importantly I am brave enough to accept the process of not quitting something new in spite of the ups and downs. I would possibly say that this could be one of the greatest lessons that I have taught myself, and it’s a lesson that has impacted every aspect of my life.

“I have found it in myself to be brave, brave enough to admit that not quitting will be hard, brave enough to reflect inward, and brave enough to be bad at first.”

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