It Is a Requirement For Living

I had a friend tell me this many months ago. She reminded me that people understand things more kindly when you are new. I greatly appreciated those words and they have popped back into my head at least once a week over the last few months.

I worked with a woman this week who was new to her role. I shadowed her as she did something for the first time, and I was reminded of these words. I actually told them to her, she smiled, and thanked me for reminding her of that fact. We are all new at everything we now know how to do and to know how to do it we had to first be new. We may be experienced, certified, degreed or even a professional something of other, and yet every one of us started it all by being new.

I encountered another person who was having their first day on the job. “So far so good,” they said and they thought they would enjoy the job immensely. They appreciated my patience and I reminded them that at some point in life we were all new.

Do you remember what it was like to be new? To not know even the basics or understand the processes? Can you remember how that felt? The jitters, the anxiousness, the excitement, the hope and the fear of people finding out that you didn’t really know what you were doing? We’ve all been there, and it’s okay to be new. Being new provides us with the opportunity to learn, to grow, to challenge and extend our knowledge beyond where it is now. Being new means people cut us a little slack until we learn how to do it without all the questions.

So give thanks for being new, look forward to being new again, and be kind to those who are new right now. It’s okay to be new, and not only that, it is a requirement for growing, learning and living a full and adventurous life!