That Awkward First 30 Minutes
Why we give up too soon: on creativity, connection, and sometimes, ourselves
I came across this wisdom the other day and immediately wanted to share it with you.
How many times have you given up on something - a poem, a party - because it felt terribly awkward during that first half hour?
I’ve long noticed that I feel this way, during the first half hour of playing tennis or book-writing, but had never really thought of it as a phenomenon:
“Amongst dancers, it’s well known that there’s a pre-dance that you have to do before each time you dance. You have to bear 10-30 minutes of dancing in a way that feels awkward before you really hit your groove If you didn’t know about the pre-dance phenomenon, then you might give up dancing at minute 7, right before you were about to hit your groove I find that anything involving creativity is like this, from writing to schmoozing at a party to working through my own complex emotions If you don’t know that all these things require an awkward pre-dance, then you lose confidence too early. You conclude that you’re “just not a creative person.” You give up or start using an AI instead of your own internal ocean of untapped intelligence.” - Tyler Alterman
I guess that a less fancy way of saying this is that we really need to warm up - for all activities, not just athletics.
Next time, try hanging in there through the 35 minute mark - and see how far it takes you!
Have you experienced this phenomenon as well?
Please, share your experiences (and share this post with friends, if you’re so inclined)!
I absolutely experience this with pretty much everything. Writing, sketching, painting... And as an elder, I think I can now apply this to living. It's now in my elder years that I feel like I've most come home to myself... Life takes practice and takes being awkward before we begin to get the hang of what it feels like to finally be ourselves. All the stages and steps are a necessary part of the journey. All the "mistakes", the missed steps, the regrets... All teach us who we are and indeed, help us see the beauty in the rough patches that help us relate to and understand each other. I wouldn't have learned everything that I have unless I went through all the the awkward and messy bits. It has taken me time to truly appreciate all the mud and falls and pain... And to realize that they're a very important part of fully becoming and loving who you are.... If you cannot love your own humanity, how can you truly love anyone else in all of their humanity? I would imagine it would be very lonely being perfect....
One thing to add: sometimes we interpret discomfort as a signal that something is wrong and reminders like this one help us to reconsider that signal, seeing it as part of a normal progression, or even as a sign that things are going exactly as they should.
Kaitlin Woolley and Ayelet Fishbach have some really interesting research on this that you can read in summary here (https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/why-making-yourself-uncomfortable-can-be-motivating). Some of that research was done in collaboration with Second City, using improv as an example of where feeling uncomfortable means that it's working. Second City's Kelly Leonard discusses the idea in more detail in a TEDx talk here: https://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_leonard_exploring_the_idea_of_strategic_discomfort