Ethos, Identity, and Mushfaking

When learning something new I'm constantly pretty honest about how good I am. I don't try to fake it or make it seem like I'm better than I am. I stay pretty true to how skilled I think I am.

I remember when I was trying to learn to do tricks on my skateboard. How to Ollie, manual, and do pop-shuvits.  I really wasn't good at all, although my friends that didn't really skate, thought I was pretty good because I could Ollie. I knew I wasn't much though so I would just say thank you and tell them I'm not really that great at it. I think this approach has helped me to not get into situations where people would expect me to do something crazy I haven't done. Allowing me to slowly progress at my own pace and if I wanted to try something more challenging I could give it a shot and I wouldn't be expected to land it the first try.

I feel like as individuals we need to stay honest to ourselves and the people around us. If we're not honest or true it makes it difficult for us to improve.

There was another time where I was learning how to ride bowls and pools at the skate park. I dropped in a couple times on small ramps but never big pools. I was with my friend and we were both at the skate park looking at the five foot drop-in, going into the pool, we didn't know how to approach it. I never dropped into anything that high before and I don't think he has either. We ended up talking to one of the guys skating the pool for some advice. He gave us a couple tips and told us to practice on the shorter ramp first. We gave it a couple tries on the shorter ramps and it didn't seem that bad so we went for it. Board hanging off the side of the five foot drop, one foot holding the board on the coping, standing on the side looking down to the concrete bottom, and feeling my heart beating fast I decided to just go for it. I stepped on the tip of my board and fell in, rolling out to the other side of the pool. It was a lot of fun, I did it again and again until it ended up feeling comfortable going down the ramp.

I think being honest with yourself and your abilities allows you to gauge your level of skill while at the same time being able to be honest with yourself and not faking it can slowly help you improve on step at a time.