You will be slow at first. But you can get faster!

The other day, I was making a batch of whole wheat pancakes, and I noticed that I got the batter mixed up in less time than it took for the cast iron pan to get hot.

A few days later, I was making blueberry muffins (a Sonia request), and I noticed that mixing up the muffin batter took about 8 minutes, which is as long as it takes my oven to get to 350°.

And that got me thinking about how whenever you start learning to do something new, you are slow. 

But the slowness does not last forever.

As long as you keep on practicing, you’ll get faster.

pumpkin chocolate chip muffins

The first time you try to bake something, it takes a long time. But the more you bake, the faster you get.

And if you bake the same recipe over and over again, you get really fast at it.

banana chocolate chip muffins

The first time you try mending a piece of clothing, you will probably take a while to figure out how to do it.

But by the time you’ve mended a zillion towels and washcloths and shirts, you will be able to mend a towel seam in just a few minutes.

The first time you try menu planning, you will probably take a while to do it.

But the more menus you plan, the faster you will be.

The first time I painted a piece of old furniture, I took longer than I do now.

Zoe’s nightstand from start to finish

The first time I made a listing on eBay, I was not fast. But now I’ve learned how to get a listing up in just a few minutes. 

When I made homemade yogurt the first time, I swore I would never make it again because it felt like so much work. 

But after a few times of repeating the process, it started to feel much less overwhelming in terms of time involved.

I say all of this because if you try something new and are feeling discouraged at how long it takes…well, I want to encourage you to hang in there.

I’ve been thinking about this lately as I’ve been working on starting a YouTube channel.

I’m not doing anything fancy (just my phone and iMovie) but still, I am sloooooow. I can turn out a blog post in pretty short order, since I’ve been doing that for 12 years, but when it comes to video, I don’t know what I’m doing!

Consequently, I take forever to get it done. I keep running into things I don’t know how to do, and it slows the process.

But I know that with more practice, I can get faster, just like I have with writing blog posts.

So.

I’m reminding you and me: 

• it’s normal to be slow at first
• if we keep practicing, we will get faster. Or at least less slow!

I’d love to hear: what have you gotten faster at with practice?

P.S. I would be remiss if I didn’t point out that with practice, you will also get much better at whatever you’re learning. You’ll bake faster, but your baked goods will also be better.

And I’ll make videos faster, but they’ll probably be better quality too.

So many good things happen when you hang in there and keep practicing.