There are many skills where to acquire them you need to power through a phase of looking very stupid to make any initial headway at all. Getting through this is

There are many skills where to acquire them you need to power through a phase of looking very stupid to make any initial headway at all. Getting through this is the difference between success and failure. Recently, I've been learning to sing better, with a focus on my higher register. One of the reasons most people cannot sing high notes well is that you inevitably have to go though a phase of singing high notes badly (and very loudly) first. Being a 'bad singer' (especially thanks to TV talent shows) is often seen as a paragon of looking like a dumb, shameful, naive idiot who overestimates their ability and lacks talent. This is despite the fact that every good singer was once a bad one. I've noticed this same pattern in varying degrees of extremity across many sills I've picked up over the years. It is when you are in the 'stupid' phase, regardless of what is is you are learning, you're unlikely to get any sympathy positive reinforcement from the world, before then hitting an inflection point where you get loads. Knowing that you need to push through this to succeed is golden.