If you think about it, we’re all living for the first time, ‘first-timers’ if I may. The people we look up to, parents, leaders or mentors, are no different. They have achieved more than most, so we naturally look to them for advice to learn from their experiences and avoid mistakes and pitfalls. But I think there’s a place for pioneering, which requires a degree of independence, that is diminished when we spend more time than necessary peering into the experiences of others.

Pioneering, by definition, is doing something that has not been done before or in a way that has not been done before. It requires tuning out outsiders’ opinions and fixation on one’s goal, despite the prevailing norms. The pioneers in history who migrated to previously uninhabited lands or invented the technologies that shape our world today, had to venture beyond the lived experiences of those that had gone before them. They had to let themselves truly be first-timers, making mistakes and learning as they went.

Perhaps some of the most impactful things we do in life come from allowing ourselves to be first-timers. It may look like pursuing that idea that’s been on your heart for a while or approaching an interaction with a colleague without the preconceived opinions of those who have interacted with them before. After all, every path we now admire began with someone willing to be a first-timer.