Nobody Starts at the Top of Their Game
Everybody starts as a beginner.
Every great began as a beginner. Whether they were a leader, writer, painter, artist, athlete, or whatever, they started as a beginner.
Nobody enters any given field as an expert. Nobody.
Yes, some people advance quicker than others. This is dependent on inherent skill and/or talent, how they learn, how fast they learn, natural ability, and all sorts of other factors along the way.
Still, even those who have the most gifts and innate proficiencies begin as beginners. Nobody starts at the top of their game.
Unfortunately, there’s a loud false narrative about the latently able starting at the top. Star athletes who appear to have arrived at their peak, the incredibly rare first-time writer creating a best-seller, the artist painting a masterpiece on the first go, and the like. These wunderkinds are held in high regard and even the expected standard all others must meet.
Yet even they started as a beginner. That part just gets ignored, glossed over, and disregarded for the present amazingness presented.
It’s okay when you don’t get it right at the start
There are, of course, numerous stories of people making lots and lots and lots of attempts before succeeding. The painter creating dozens of unnoticed works before being discovered and celebrated. The actor taking bit part after commercial after bit part before the breakout role making them a household name. The author writing for magazines, writing stories no publisher with touch, over and over before producing that best-seller.
All of them have the same thing in common. Each and every one of them begins as a beginner. Nobody starts at the top of their game.
Some of the most successful people in history endured tons of failures, false starts, and other challenges on the way to their success. They tried and failed and chose to keep working. They didn’t do the half-assed, half-hearted “try” Yoda warns against in my favorite quote,
“Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.”
They do. It’s an attempt, but an action that is doing rather than half-assed trying. They give it their all, and when it fails, they learn what they can from their failure before making the next attempt. Sometimes the failure itself is a lesson that leads to ultimate success.
The process is never the same for any creation, discovery, recognition, or success. The process, however, is similar.
Thought leads to idea à Idea leads to actionable item à Actionable item leads to action à Action leads to learning from success or failure.
All these steps are the same for everyone. It’s how many times you take action that varies. Nobody starts at the top of their game as an expert. Everybody starts as a beginner.
The top of their game isn’t necessarily THE top
Several people in the world are referred to as the GOAT – the Greatest of All Time. They’re held as the top of the top of the game. They’re the Gold Standard for achievement, success, and amazingness.
Yet someday another will claim that title. The GOAT of 2024 can’t hold a candle to the GOAT of 2044. They did something the 2024 greatest could hardly imagine to make them the new Greatest of All Time.
Ergo, the top of their game isn’t THE top. It’s the top of their game in this moment. This moment just happens to be the only time that’s really, truly, genuinely real.
The GOATs all began as beginners. Not a single one of them appeared on the scene fully formed, greater than any other, ever. Holding them up as the pinnacle of achievement is often touted as inspiring. Yet frequently it has the exact opposite effect.
See the Greatest of All Time over there? They’ve done it. They’re the best. You should sit down, give up, and move on because you can’t be them. They’ve done it, they’re at the top, and there’s no room at the top.
This is a lie. The top of anyone’s game isn’t the one and only, singular top of the game. Being a best-selling author doesn’t mean you’re the best writer that there is. It means you’re at the top of your game, which is your genre. What’s more, you’re one of many bestsellers past and present.
The trouble comes when you are convinced that someone else reaching the top of their game – if it’s anything like your game – means you have already lost out. However, that’s simply not true.
Practice, practice, practice
The classic joke goes like this. “How do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice, practice, practice.”
The truth behind this joke is that to reach the top of your game you need to work your way up from the bottom. However, while there are always roadmaps available, no two people have the same exact journey.
Also, change being the one and only constant in the Universe, the successful trek of yesterday might be quite a bit different today.
For example, I started participating in medieval fencing in 1991. When I began, I was about as athletic as your average inanimate carbon rod, just larger and heavier. Still, I found something I desired to excel at. I practiced, I learned. Along the way, I improved. Then I got hit by a car crossing a street. After a year of recovery, I was back at it fencing. I practiced, I learned. Along the way, I improved.
Around 2006, I reached the top of my game. My game. I received a coveted award in recognition of that. Since then, a new pinnacle, a higher award of recognition has come into being. If I desire to achieve it, I need to reach a new top of my game. That requires practice, more practice, and yet more practice. I also accept that the top of my game isn’t going to be the top of THE game. And that’s utterly okay.
I’ve published a dozen sci-fi and fantasy novels. None have been best-sellers. Yet. More writing is more practice, and when I fail, I strive to learn from that and keep following the actionable lead to take action.
Practice, practice, practice. However, there’s an important factor to address when it comes to going from beginner to the top of the game.
Mindfulness to reach the top of their game
Very seldom, almost impossibly seldom, does someone luck into the top of their game. Unplanned success and achievement at any given thing is almost mythical, like dragons. The actor getting discovered sitting at a lunch counter, the screenwriter’s half-formed and unwritten pitch, or the artist with one random splatter-painted piece selling for millions and becoming an immediate star or sensation are rarer than rare.
Nobody truly starts at the top of their game. They do the work, they attempt and have small successes or failures, and they make new attempts again and again until they succeed. That action isn’t chance or luck or random happenstance. It’s mindfulness.
Active conscious awareness is mindfulness. What that means is you do your work not by rote and routine, but by active, conscious process. You have the idea. You think about how to turn that idea into reality. Then you feel it out and form the process, setting your intention. With a positive approach for achievement, you take action and start to create.
Mindfulness is how anyone and everyone reaches the top of their game. Intentional actions, fueled by thoughts, feelings, and a directed positive approach are how everything is created, tangible or intangible. The actors and singers actively find their voices. Authors and artists find their muses. Scientists pursue their theorems. Random success from zero, starting at the top of their game, isn’t how it happens.
There’s another factor to consider here as well.
Success at the top of their game or your game is variable
Measuring success gets challenging when you’re bombarded by false success. Take, for example, the “billionaire” so many hold up as this amazing success, yet he can’t afford to post a bond or pay for his mounting legal troubles.
Measuring success is a highly individual matter. What’s more, success is different for every individual.
As a writer, yes, I’d love to be a best-seller. That isn’t, however, the success I strive for, first and foremost. Success begins when I finish a book. It continues when I publish a book. Then success is the sales of that book.
This is the last part of the myth is that people can start at the top of their game. Truly, they don’t, because everyone starts as a beginner. Ergo, everyone grows, learns, evolves, and improves their craft via practice and mindful work.
Maybe you’re a beginner, maybe in the middle, or maybe at the top of your game. Wherever you are, mindfulness is the key to getting where you desire to go.
Do you see why nobody starts at the top of their game?
This is the six-hundred and thirty-ninth (639) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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