The first pancake

A friend from Russia once told me they had a saying in her family:

The first pancake always comes out funny.

I don't know if that's a Russian saying or if it was only in her family.

She was using it as a wisecrack about her older sister who, judging from her reaction, had heard it before. But I must have used it a hundred times myself since then, in plenty of other contexts:

• first draft of a blog post

• first time trying Jiu Jitsu (or dance, or a musical instrument, or a foreign language)

• first time driving a car on the open road

• first time building a report, or configuring online event registration, or almost anything else, in your CRM.

They're all going to "come out funny," unless you just happen to get lucky.

The only way to avoid that is to never get started.

… which is also a good way to avoid the tenth time and the hundredth time, when it finally starts to look good.

Here's the thing:

You can't be trying new things all the time …
And you don't want it to look funny every time …

But if you want to get good at it, you'll have to endure that first-time awkwardness, at least for a while.

All the best,
A.