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Stop apologizing and just do it

 There’s a popular phrase, “presentation is everything”. If something is presented in the wrong way, it has a good chance of losing a good deal of appreciation. While most people understand this from a physical perspective - great food that is just piled on your plate is less appreciated than decent food that is carefully presented - this is also true when presenting something written or oral. 

 When somebody starts off talking by saying, “this probably isn’t going to work, but...” or, “I’m sure there are better ways of doing this…”, expectations drop. Why should they waste their valuable time on something that even the person presenting it doesn’t think is any good. So why do people do this? Nobody likes being wrong. There is a lot of posturing and expressions whose sole purpose is to allow people to save face.  People feel uncomfortable making a statement that they don’t feel confident that they can back up. It is easier to hide behind an excuse than to be proven wrong.

The first thing that you have to understand is that everyone makes mistakes and has been wrong plenty of times. The more experience you have in any area, the more you are going to understand the bigger picture. Most importantly, this is something that is fully understood by everyone. So if an intern or entry level person is asked to do something, the expectation is that it will not be the same result as if someone with ten years of experience was asked to do the same thing. Instead of apologizing and making excuses, do the best job you can do. Be prepared to answer questions and don’t be afraid to say, “I didn’t know that”. You will be respected for it.

“It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than to get permission”. Don’t turn down something that you want because you’re not sure if you can do it or not. When an opportunity is presented to you, grab it and do the best job that you can. What people consider to be expertise is very often merely a combination of posturing, confidence and common sense. Any knowledge and experience that can be thrown into the mix is an added bonus. That doesn’t mean that you don’t have to spend a lot of time learning new material. When starting anything new, read up on it, experiment and practice. When you present or discuss the final results, you can describe what is missing in order to complete it. 

The real question that you need to answer when presented with an objective that you don’t feel qualified to complete is whether you want to be able to do it. Most things that you will be asked to do have already been done in one form or another by other people. By accepting a challenge with a smile and confidence, you are portraying that you want to do it and that you are confident in your abilities. This confidence is transferred over to the other people as well.

However, confidence is not the only thing needed to deliver a project. You are going to have to spend a lot of time learning and trying things out. There are plenty of online resources, research, courses and discussion forums. Look for mentors and people with more experience to help you out. Ask answerable questions. “I don’t know how to do this” and “this isn’t working for me” are not an answerable questions. “I am having trouble figuring out the ... in this specific situation. This is what I’ve already tried and these are the results I’ve gotten. Can you offer me any advice?”  is much more answerable. The more you can break down a problem to a specific answerable question, the better chance you have of getting an answer.


“This is what I’ve done so far. To finish the project, we need a graphic designer to make it look more professional.”  sounds a lot better than, “I’m not so good at design, so it doesn’t look very nice”

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