I wasn't the top student in my accounting class. Not close, honestly. But out of everyone in that batch, I was probably the happiest one sitting through the subject — because for the first time, I'd found something I genuinely enjoyed doing, even while I was still bad at it.
That distinction matters more than people realize: enjoying something and being good at it are two completely different starting points, and only one of them is actually required to begin.
Discovering Something You Didn't Know Existed
I found accounting almost by accident. My attention growing up was on the "usual" paths — engineering, architecture, uniformed government work. I hadn't even heard of a CPA, a bookkeeper, or a finance career before senior high school. It was only after landing in the Accounting, Business, and Management track that I stumbled onto the one subject where showing up to class actually felt good, regardless of how well I was performing in it.
If I had waited to feel confident or competent before taking that subject seriously, I never would have gotten anywhere with it. The enjoyment came first. The competence came later, slowly, through repetition and mistakes.
Decisions Are a Skill You Build, Not a Trait You're Born With
Here's something I've had to unlearn: the belief that some people are just naturally decisive, and others simply aren't wired that way. I don't think that's true. I think deciding for yourself is a skill — one that most people never practice enough to get comfortable with, because deciding is uncomfortable, unfamiliar, and occasionally embarrassing when it goes wrong.
The skill-based nature of decision-making cuts both ways, though. Because it can be practiced, it can also atrophy. Go long enough without making real decisions for yourself, and that muscle weakens — which is exactly why so many people feel frozen when a big decision finally lands in front of them.
Almost every major decision I've made — stopping my studies at one point, staying employed while going back to school later, choosing a completely unfamiliar career path — has been messy in the moment. What separates people who move forward from people who stay stuck isn't the quality of their decisions. It's whether they kept executing decisions at all, mistakes included.
Why the "Bad" Phase Isn't Optional
There's a quiet assumption a lot of us carry: that we should wait until we're reasonably good at something before we let anyone see us do it — or before we even let ourselves fully commit to it. I understand the instinct. Nobody wants to look incompetent in public.
But being bad first isn't a detour on the way to being good — it's the actual road. You cannot get to competence without first passing through a phase where you're clumsy, uncertain, and probably making mistakes that feel embarrassing at the time. Skipping that phase isn't possible. Delaying it just delays everything that comes after it.
What This Cost Me When I Tried to Skip It
Looking back, most of my hesitation in life came from trying to avoid that uncomfortable "bad" stage rather than just walking through it. Every time I finally stopped waiting to feel ready — taking on unfamiliar work, making a decision without full certainty it was right — the outcome was never as bad as the anticipation of being visibly bad at something new.
The moments I regret aren't the ones where I acted badly and it showed. They're the moments I waited too long to start, hoping I'd somehow arrive at competence without first passing through incompetence.
Where This Leaves You
If there's a version of yourself waiting until you're "good enough" to start something — a new skill, a business idea, a career shift — I'd gently push back on that plan. Good doesn't come before starting. It comes after enough rounds of being bad, on purpose, in public, without waiting for permission to begin.
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Mahal na mahal kita. Mahal na mahal ka ng Diyos. Faith without action is Fiction.