The other day, a non-English speaker asked me to explain the word banter to them. I had a really hard time finding a word in Catalan or even in Spanish that could explain the concept. Maybe there is one and I couldn’t come up with it, or maybe there isn’t. The point is that, no matter how long I’ve been speaking my mother tongues for, I definitely don’t know every word there is to know in those languages. How then do I expect to be an expert on anything else that I have just started doing?
I need to cut myself some slack. I can’t possibly become an expert in something that I’ve only been doing for a few years now, or expect to produce the best work of my career when I have probably 30 more years of career ahead of me. Besides, the word expert becomes outdated easily. When you become an expert in something, that something is already obsolete. You have to keep updating yourself which means that you are always learning, you are never 100% expert in anything. And that is totally fine. That means you are growing.
It’s difficult to see your own progress because you are the one living your own life. For you, everything that you are doing feels like a work in progress; for others, you might be producing some really outstanding work. I have to stop and take a breath and try to see myself from other people’s perspectives. The signs are there, I just need to see them: some interesting people are starting to notice my work; my clients keep on wanting to work with me; I get recognized when I go to events in spite of the fact that I’ve only been living in this city for a bit more than 4 years. I must be doing something right.
This is not a competition to become famous and it’s definitely not one to see who makes the most money. This is your life and it’s less like a race and more like a journey. Anything that is worth achieving takes time. You weren’t born as a 45-year-old adult; it took you 45 years to get to where you are.
Photo credit: behind the scenes shot by Facundo Bustamante.
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