Years ago, when I started practicing Aikido, I was constantly humiliated by my inability to perform the most simple of techniques. I was really bad. Very bad. Nothing ever ended up in the right place. I couldn't keep my balance, turn, attack, fall or roll. My techniques resembled a old Gumby film with missing frames.

Hardly anything done in Aikido is what a normal person would choose as a first option. It takes a lot of practice to overcome the basic instincts of avoiding punches and kicks, instead stepping into them. Do you know how much confidence it takes to realize just when your attackers think they have you where they want you, they just gave you a great opportunity to introduce them to the Earth... very suddenly.

In an online business, it's much the same. You're going to start out doing everything badly. The first product will not be perfect. It will contain typos and squeaks and whines. You'll say to much in some places and too little in others. The conversion rate on your first sales page will probably be less than 1%. You'll list features instead of benefits. When you start blogging, the posts will be short and me tooish or too long and cumbersome. Your articles won't contain the pizzaz needed to bring traffic. Traffic and sales will be slow for a long time.

But it's important you do them AND you release them. When they're released they generate feedback. It's similar to the time I was performing a technique (poorly) and my partner thought I should have been doing it better. So she (all 5' 90lbs of her) countered and introduced me to the mat, sharply. Embarrassing? Most definitely. Did I survive and learn my lesson? Yes. Have I had similar lessons since then? Of course, both in Aikido and in my online business. But I've improved both because of these lessons. Moving on and getting better is what you should be focused on, not where you are today.

Here's 3 reasons why being bad at something is good:

1. For the ideas. Any problems you have is an opportunity to create a product, blog post or article. Did you find an effective way to generate traffic? Create an e-book. Don't understand what FTP is? Create a blog post. Can't do something in WordPress? Build the plugin yourself and sell it on to others. My suggestion: WRITE DOWN YOUR PROBLEMS. Keep it in a journal or a simple txt document. Log everything and someday when you're stuck for ideas, open it up and viola, no more research needed!

2. You get better at it by doing. Everyone was once a beginner. Leonardo Da Vinci probably once drew in stick figures but he went on to paint the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. You don't get better my reading, you get better by practicing. My suggestion: Consider everything between now and when you consider yourself a master to be nothing more than practice. Practice, practice, practice and make it fun!

3. It's fun. Perhaps it's just me, but I find learning fun. You can't learn about things you've already mastered, so most of the things you need/want to learn about you're going to do badly! There isn't a single person who is good at everything. Make your tasks fun. Make discovery fun. My suggestion: Children find everything fascinating. Adopt a child like attitude towards all the tasks you're faced with. Enjoying the learning process is probably why children learn so fast and innately. When you learn something let out a big AHA! Then do a little dance.

So get out there and be horrible at something. If you keep at it, in a couple of months/years, you'll actually be good at it. That's how the masters got to be masters.