The three mistakes almost everyone makes when starting something are trusting beginner confidence, expecting the work to stay exciting and being unprepared to lose before you win. Some mistakes are close to unavoidable when you start a new project or business. It takes a lot of trial and error before most of what you start lands consistently.
The video walks through three of them and how to survive each. The common answer is awareness: if you know the mistake is coming, you are far more likely to stay in the game long enough to get past it.
Watch the full video here, or skip to the breakdown below.
The 3 mistakes at a glance
- Unfounded extreme confidence
- You expect excitement and get the mundane
- You are not ready to be a loser
1. Unfounded extreme confidence
When your skill is zero, every tiny bit of progress feels huge. The video compares it to a toddler who has just learned to walk and feels like the fastest human alive, since the previous experience was dragging a tiny body across the floor.
Each time you try something new, your brain forms connections it never made before, and figuring something out for the first time feels like enlightenment, which is why ideas are symbolized by a lightbulb. That feeling brings energy and motivation, and also a dangerous kind of confidence.
Alux quotes Charles Darwin: ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge. It then points to a paper titled Unskilled and Unaware of It, which showed that people with little knowledge of a subject are confident and outspoken about it. We now call this the Dunning-Kruger effect.
There are two big swings when you start learning. The first is the instant overconfidence boost. Take guitar: most people can play a basic song in under an hour, and feel like prodigies. Then they move on to something harder and find themselves in pain, with clunky sounds coming out. This is the second swing, the valley of despair, the sudden realization that you have no idea what you are doing. Confidence shatters, and this is where the first mistake happens: people quit too early. Projects get abandoned and businesses go bankrupt in three months, because nobody stuck around to climb out of the valley.
The fix is awareness. Know that your first contact will not show the full picture and that overconfidence is coming, then prepare for the valley and keep going. If you make it out, the video says, you have gone further than 90 percent of people.
2. You expect excitement and get the mundane
A new project is exciting at first. You are building it and doing it. But the excitement lasts as long as the flavor in chewing gum, and then you start to think maybe it is not what you hoped.
The video’s point is that there is a big difference between what you hope something will be and what it is. Excitement is not a trait of any activity. It is an emotional state that comes and goes, and the only influence you have over it is your attitude. Even the most burning passion becomes just work once you have to do it.
The second mistake is believing that fading excitement means you are doing something wrong, that this is not for you or not your calling. The brutal truth, according to the video, is that consistent hard work is boring and tiresome, and it is supposed to be. That is why so few people do it. Working 10 to 12 hours a day is not exciting, most days are tiring and progress is slow.
So why do people go through it? Because what you might get in return cannot be obtained any other way, and everything worth having takes unimaginable effort. Everyone thinks they can handle it, until, as Mike Tyson said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.
There is no secret technique to survive it. You have to go through it. You are supposed to have hard days and feel stuck. In return, you get the right to say this is not as easy as people think, you connect with others who went through the same and you join a small group who get what most only dream of.
3. You are not ready to be a loser
This is the heavy one, and the video says people rarely discuss it because it is uncomfortable. When you gather the courage to build something on your own, you expect admiration. People will say they admire you to your face, but deep down some hope you fail, because that lets them feel better about not taking the harder path.
Your family will think you are crazy and your friends will ask whether you are sure it will work. The team says those are valid questions. In most games there are winners and losers at the end. In this game you are a loser first and maybe a winner at the end. The moment you take the harder path you expose yourself to a losing scenario, because most things fail and the worldwide success rate is low. Statistically, you are on the losing team.
You could tell yourself you are on the at-least-I-tried team, but the video asks when anyone last got a reward for at least trying. So get ready to be a loser for the most part. Until things start to happen, you will be the overambitious kid with foolish dreams, and you will be fine with it because you would rather deal with losing than with what-ifs.
Starting is a modern adventure
The narrator ends by saying nothing can fully prepare you for what comes next if you decide to start. In a way, it describes it as the modern take on going on an adventure, and it wishes each viewer finds their own.
The practical takeaway is to expect the confidence spike, plan for the valley and accept the boring middle and the early losses as part of the price.
FAQ
What is the valley of despair when starting something new?
It is the moment after early overconfidence when you realize you are much worse than you thought and have no idea what you are doing. Alux says people often quit here, and getting through it puts you ahead of 90 percent of people.
What is the Dunning-Kruger effect?
It is the finding that people with little knowledge of a subject tend to be confident and outspoken about it. The team uses it to explain why beginners feel so sure of themselves.
Why does the excitement of a new project fade?
Excitement is an emotional state, not a trait of an activity, so it comes and goes. Even a passion becomes work when you have to do it every day.
Is it normal for hard work to feel boring?
Yes. Consistent hard work is boring and tiresome, and that is why so few people do it.
Why do you have to be ready to lose before you win?
Because most new ventures fail, so statistically you start on the losing side. You should accept being the overambitious kid with foolish dreams until things start to work.
Keep reading
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