You suck; that's Level 1.

Deep breath in and PPfpFFPFPFfffffff....
Deep breath again and pfpppfffffffffff....
Deep breath again and pfpfpfffff....

Nothing. Not a sound.

I bought a didgeridoo on a whim.

I wander into The Arts music store and I see this beautiful creamsicle orange tube about 5 feet long—I can't resist. I pay $50, take it home, and try to make a sound.

No bueno.

I'm reasonable, so I watch a YouTube video to try to figure out how this thing works.

"Oh! I get it, my lips were all wrong. Let's try again."

After another 7, 8, 9, 10 attempts back to back with deep breaths, I'm lightheaded and on the verge of passing out. Still no sound. I take a minute to let the fuzzy feeling and stars fade away before trying again. I watch another video or two to better understand what I'm missing.

After three hours, THREE f*cking hours of nearly blacking out every 10 minutes, I finally made a sound. And honestly, it sounded like shit.

But... it sounded.

It was enough to confirm that this is possible—that I can do it.

Six months later I'm using the didgeridoo in my breathwork classes, and it amazes people! They're dumbfounded by how a straight, hollow tube can make such psychedelic sounds.

Ignore the Effort-to-Result Ratio

When I started playing the instrument, it took my entire lung capacity to make a sound for 3 seconds. But over time, with practice, I can now sustain the sound for 37 seconds on a single breath. I can tell you now that my lung capacity hasn't increased by much.

So what changed?

Wind instruments rely on embouchure. Embouchure is the use of the lips, facial muscles, tongue, and teeth in a precise and controlled manner to produce the desired sound. It's not easy to develop—especially for me, who grew up smashing hands and sticks on drums and metal. This requires finesse. Finesse, it turns out, requires patience.

But through the development of this embouchure, I can now play the didgeridoo indefinitely. Yes, I mean forever. And it's so fun. I've played for 30 minutes non-stop (meaning the droning sound never paused) and blew my own mind. At a social event, a bunch of us stuffed ourselves into a tiny massage room so I could bathe them in the sound.

These memories exist because I overlooked the initial effort to results ratio. If I had focused on how it took me 3 hours to make a wonky sound that lasted 3 seconds, I wouldn't have continued to play.

The Lesson

On the journey of developing a new skill, our initial large efforts will get us low-quality results, if any at all. It sucks to suck, but sucking isn't bad; it's Level 1, and you're still learning the rules of the game.

A better way to look at 'sucking' is 'laying.' It's not that you suck; it's that you don't have a foundation. And the laying of that foundation requires large amounts of time and energy.

How to apply this to your life:

1. Choose something and commit to it. Whatever you pick, make sure it doesn't feel overwhelming to your nervous system. If it does, break it down into smaller parts and commit to one part.

2. Take the time and work it into your schedule, even if it's 10 minutes a day or every other day. You need to lay a foundation.

3. Optimize efforts through balancing practice with education. I recommend a ratio of 20:80 for education to practice. You don't build a foundation by watching content alone.

4. Get messy and give yourself grace. You will suck; you will not make (noticeable) progress right away. This isn't wasted effort; you're laying a foundation (get this through your thick skull).

5. Keep going long enough to have a foundation. Then get a sense of what it feels like to "play" with this new skill and catch a glimpse of its potential future in your life.

6. Once you play a bit, ask yourself this: "If I walk away from this now, will I be asking myself, 'What if?' down the road?"

   1. If so, keep developing the skill. There's something there for you that isn't satisfied yet.

   2. If not, then you could park it. You can return to it down the road if you choose. Foundations don't fade; we never forget how to ride a bike.

Key things to note.

• Over time, you will notice that you produce more results with the same amount of effort. This is the fine-tuning of your 'embouchure.' My didgeridoo skills didn't jump from 3 seconds to 37 seconds—it was a transition over months.

• By getting results, you will begin to glimpse the future. This will give you a better sense of whether it's a future you want to pursue.

Conclusion

Whatever you pursue, you will be moving with feet of clay. You will make mistakes, you will go in the wrong direction, you will put in lots of effort and see nothing for it. That's the game. That's level 1 - laying the foundation. It will be challenging to get those first few (hundred) reps in .

Keep this in mind: overcoming the initial challenge and realizing "this isn't for me" will always feel better than living with a heavy bag of "what if's".

So get out there,
get messy,
give yourself grace,
and remember: it's Level 1.

If you found this helpful/interesting, subscribe and share it with a friend. Honestly, this whole writing thing is the 'embouchure' I'm fine-tuning. I'm pushing through that terrible ratio of effort to results because I don't want this to be a 'what if' in my life.

Sincerely,
Ariel