Beginner's Mind 👶

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Shoshin is a Zen Buddhism term that means beginner's mind. It means approaching a subject from an attitude of openness, and without any preconceived notions, just like a beginner, even when you're already at an advanced level.

As makers, a beginner's mind is the key to becoming a lifelong learner, and a successful problem-solver.

In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind there are few.
— Shunryu Suzuki
 

The Dunning-Kruger effect

Most people have an inability to recognize their own lack of ability. In psychology, this contributes to the Dunning-Kruger effect, a cognitive bias in which people with low ability at a task overestimate their ability. 

Along the journey of competence in a subject, very early on there's a sense of knowledge gained — to the point where we may feel like, "oh, this is easy... I'm already good at this." Then, as we advance, we start to realize how much more there is to learn and recognize it will be an enormous challenge to truly advance. But over time, knowledge is gained, and our sense of confidence grows accordingly.
 

Beginner's mind in martial arts

Shoshin is often applied to the experience of studying Japanese martial arts. I touch upon this briefly in 7 ways training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu will level up your programming skills. The Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu experience is broken up into 5 belt colors: white, blue, purple, brown, and black. It often takes well over 10 years of training to achieve a black belt.

Upon entering a gym for the first time, the white belt knows nothing. But after a few sessions, their knowledge of grappling is expanded tremendously. There are innumerable new techniques to learn in the beginning. So there's a sense of, "Wow, now I'm a Jiu-Jitsu expert. Here I come, black belt." Many white belts walk away thinking they've experienced all there is.

Then the white belt earns their blue belt and they're thrust into a world of pain and frustration. As a blue belt, you have more opportunities to compete against advanced partners. And the blue belt starts to think, "I'll never learn all there is to learn in this sport." Many blue belts walk away thinking the journey is too hard and too long.

But if a blue belt manages to make it through to purple belt, the attitude shifts. Looking back at their struggles through white and blue, and seeing how much they've learned, but also having a sense of how much more there is to learn, a new outlook is formed. Knowing that you don't know what you don't know is liberating. The purple belt will approach his future journey with an open mind... a beginner's mind.
 

The beginner's maker mind

All of this is simply learning how to learn. Recognizing that we cannot evaluate our own level of competency, the maker who embraces Shoshin will always be willing to improve, to approach making with an open mind, and to listen to the ideas of others. It allows us as makers to continue to evolve, to explore new mediums, new technologies, to never pigeon hole ourselves into one path, but to use our passion for learning to build amazing things.

Keep making, and thanks for reading! 🙌

Hit reply to tell me what you're making. I'm looking for anyone interested in talking about their own side-projects and maker journey, so speak up if you'd like to appear in Serial Maker. I'd also love to know what you thought of this issue, and what you want to hear about in the future. And don't forget to continue the conversation on Discord!

Until next week,

Craig