Shoshin - Unlocking the Beginner's Mind
And how to banish The Curse of Knowledge.
I’ve spent every morning for the past few months writing, or researching, for my new book Fan the Fire. This book has been unlike any other project I’ve worked on simply because it has not felt like work.
Normally I would tell myself adding a huge project onto a long-enough-as-it-is to-do list would be unwise. But I’m finding this book is emerging day by day, in tamable waves within the margins of life. In between all the other commitments, and distractions in imperfect days.
The book results from my renewal process and fanning my creative fire.
In it are many sobering truths, and liberating simplicities. Which I find to be necessary reminders for myself when I work at the edge of my growth. And so, I decided I would also share some of those with you. So, we can enjoy this part of the creative process together.
If you haven’t already:
“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s mind there are few.”
Shunryu Suzuki Sōtō Zen Monk
Shoshin means ‘Beginner’s Mind’
Shoshin is an idea from Zen Buddhism. Maybe it’s on my mind because I just got back from my anniversary trip to Japan. But it has stayed on my mind as I’ve returned like a landing plane back into the creative work I left for myself.
As I return to this and question, “What is ‘normal’ for me?” I remembered Shoshin and the importance of approaching any creative work from ‘A Beginner’s Mind.’
At the start of any great creative project, it is easy to approach what you’re working on from a new, open perspective because you’re only just starting. Early in a creative career, every project is like this. But after some time, you develop blinders that come from seeing a thing and how it’s done a thousand times. And growing a strong expectation for what it looks like.
Most people, when they start something new, are afraid. They fear the unknowns of something new because they don’t know what to expect. Usually, these fears are worse than the actual possibilities of what could happen, because when we don’t have a solid expectation of what could occur, we fill that blank space in with imagining of what we fear happening the most.
When you have a strong expectation for how a thing should be it becomes automatic for you. You don’t stop to question how it could still be, or other possibilities for how it could be done. When beginners approach something new, they don’t know what it should be or what tradition dictates. Depending on their teacher, or mentor, they start at the core most important idea: what is being created. What problem needs to be ‘solved.’ And then they seek to do that.
From that lens, they’ll perceive every instruction and try to understand how it all comes together to accomplish that goal. And the most beautiful, serendipitous thing is that they may imagine new ways to create or accomplish the same outcome, which a master may simply would not think of. Because they are blinded by experience and expectations.
Just like how an apprentice seeks a mentor to learn how to create what they want—a mentor seeks an apprentice because a beginner is the person that an expert can best learn from.
The Curse of Knowledge
In the process of something becoming automatic, instinctual, a part of you—you etch with repetition an expectation for how things should be. There is no avoiding this. It is no different than the process of Hedonic Adaptation, where eventually pleasures that once felt immense become dull or need far more stimulus to register the same over time.
With a beginner everything is new, the immersion in the adventure and the excitement make everything feel high intensity. The colors are brighter, and the sounds are sweet. It’s like why everything tastes better on vacation. But like how having the same dish for dinner every night can get old quickly, repetition of the same dulls our senses. Because deep down what many of us are seeking is novelty itself—the pursuit of newness, which in the brain is called Dopamine. You don’t need to understand neuroscience to understand that Dopamine is your brain’s reward for pursuit, not the reward of pursuit.
This means the great rush of excitement and interest and focus you get at the start of something new you’re getting because of the newness of it, the pursuit, the desire of it. But once you’ve experienced something, you’ll get less and less dopamine for it. That means less and less motivation and everything gets a little harder.
And it will take more to achieve the same level of sensation that came naturally the first time. This is the addictive nature of all things—and conversely, how you can train yourself to be addicted to the things that are good for you.
But before you can learn to use this to train yourself, you must first unlearn this, and banish what the authors of, Made to Stick, Chip and Dan Heath, call The Curse of Knowledge. In their book, the authors share storytelling secrets to make your ideas easier to understand. And easier for others to remember, and share.
In it, they discuss The Curse of Knowledge, which is this blindness that comes from doing things one way for long enough. In the world of writers and storytellers, The Curse of Knowledge is a particularly dangerous affliction that can leave a mediocre piece of writing a single edit away from greatness.
When a writer has The Curse of Knowledge they will forget what their audience does not know and ‘bury the lede’ as journalists say. They don’t start with what is most important and make others have to work to find out what the piece is about, which most won’t make the effort to do.
This also matters tremendously in teaching, and in film, and it’s the reason why Star Wars starts in the middle. Despite confusing continuity, it’s worth it because it’s part of the story that starts with the most action. A teacher can bury what is most important or interesting, assume what others already know, and sabotage a whole project from the start.
The good news is that The Curse of Knowledge is an affliction with a remedy and can be lifted.
And the remedy is Shoshin.
Tapping Into Your Beginner’s Mind
The first step in accessing your Beginner’s Mind is stepping away from the challengeor creation The Curse of Knowledge has afflicted. First, you need to change your scenery to change your mind. Change your physiology to alter your psychology. Step outside, spend some time in nature, do some exercise, or take a shower. And after you feel like you’ve sufficiently let go and forgotten about the challenge at hand—return to it to perceive it with a Beginner’s Mind.
Walt Disney used to do something similar to improve his work where he would draw actual circles on the ground to represent different states of mind and literally step into them. In one spot he would perceive his work as a critic. In another, as an editor. In another, as a child (his audience). You only have to imagine one spot to stand in, that of The Beginner.
To get into the mindset of a Beginner, ask yourself, “What exactly is it I’m trying to achieve here?”
Not, “What have I been doing?” Or “How have I been thinking about this?”
You’re attempting the same challenge, but this time, you’re starting from scratch.
A Beginner may have a different solution or way to accomplish the same task. Or realize, the solutions you have so far don’t actually accomplish what they were designed for. There may be a more optimal path to the realization of your vision.
A Beginner asks the wisest questions.
They seek to understand what is going on, and why it’s going on. And how well it helps them achieve their goal. Their perspective isn’t warped by time spent in delayed gratification where uncertainty can develop. And where abstract plans begin to sound appealing. The Beginner seeks simplicity because they can only juggle so much new information at once, while still executing on it. And you can only sit in The Beginner’s Mind briefly before the illusion fades and familiarity returns. So, keep it simple.
While an Expert should learn from a Beginner and cultivate a Beginner’s mind themselves—Beginners are not better than Experts with a Beginner’s mind. Follow me here.
Beginners will eventually add more than is necessary because they do not know what is necessary yet. That is what is gained in the trade of acquiring the Expert’s mind and The Curse of Knowledge. There is another concept from Zen Buddhism that explains this known as ‘Kanso’ which means eliminating what is unnecessary to focus on what is essential.
Ironically, the best time to be a Beginner is after you’ve already become an Expert of something.
Beginners, don’t take advantage much of their mindset unless they’re working closely with a mentor who can help them focus on what’s essential—while allowing outside of tradition and experience.
Like they say, “youth is wasted on the young” and a fresh mind is wasted on the beginner.
Too many spices can spoil a dish, in the sea of many the few get lost—this is one of those first principles that translate well to just about everything. When you focus on what is essential, you can execute it well. And this is Mastery. An Expert may know and assume what is essential, but what is essential may change. Or what is essential, that is—what best serves the people involved—can be undervalued, or overlooked.
I believe that we don’t lose a Beginner’s mind, we simply gain an Expert’s mind. But the Beginner’s mind is still there to access if we remember to. Like asking your inner child how they feel about your decision today, your Beginner’s Mind you had when you just started pursuing your passions is still there beneath.
You can lose touch with it, like with anything else you don’t practice.
So, to avoid that and bring back the fresh air of Shoshin to your creative work…
Here are 3 ways to keep in touch with your Beginner’s Mind:
Stay Curious
Curiosity is a tonic that lengthens The Beginner’s Mind. If you could stay perpetually curious you would stay perpetually in the sweet spot between the Expert’s wisdom of knowing what to do—and the Beginner’s wisdom of doing it as if for the first time.
A Beginner wants to find out what happens next, they are curious about each step in the process. Each brushstroke and the painting are slowly revealed. Each page and the chapter that is coming together.
An Expert loses curiosity when they assume they know where this is going. And, they may, being an Expert after it all. Pattern recognition kicks in and it’s hard to see something for what it is, versus how it’s just ‘another one of those.’
I have this with Sci-Fi movies. I used to watch Sci-Fi movies with my grandma every day at her house. And these movies like Krull, or The Never Ending Story had some of the most absurd special effects in the history of filmmaking. But I loved those movies and the time spent with her.
Now, I enjoy reminiscing about those times, but when I see a new Sci-Fi movie out, I think, “Oh geeze, it’s another one of those. Haven’t we made enough of those?” But I only think that, because I had experienced the first versions of those movies with my grandmother. This blinds me to all the aspects that make those movies kind of bad.
And blinds me to the fact that the new movies I dismiss as being cheap knock-offs, provide the same experience I cherish for kids today. At first impression, I may criticize those movies for poor writing, overdone characters, and crappy SFX. But when I revisit the movies I love they are the same. They are also victims of poor writing and crappy SFX. And they certainly were not the first portrayal of the characters either.
The only difference is I was deeply curious about the movies I loved. It came naturally. Now I recreate this sensation consciously by focusing on what part of anything I am seeing I can conjure up curiosity about. I imagine that I am watching it as a child.
And ask myself, “What about this am I curious about?”
Stay Present
When your mind wanders, it can wander off and get stuck. And the two places the mind gets stuck the most are the past and the future. Curiosity and a Beginner’s Mind only benefits you in the present—where all creating happens.
You can be curious about the past, and the future, and you should be, but there are two problems.
One, if you’re curious about the past you can only infer what has happened. You’re playing detective. Which, if you are investigating the past, great—but for most people this looks more like ruminating over old wounds and turning them over like stones hoping to find something new. In this case, your curiosity isn’t serving you, until you begin to wonder how what happened in the past can benefit you now.
The second problem is of course getting stuck wondering about the future. It’s excellent, even required to be curious about the future, but the problem is you have to wait to find out what happens. Curiosity needs a feedback loop and if you’re curious about the future, well, you’re going to be waiting for some time to find out what happens next.
The other major flaw in that type of thinking is that when you are curious in the present you can create what happens next. Don’t underestimate this. This is everything.
You may not know exactly how what you’re working on is going to turn out, but you know directionally where this is taking you—and that is better than standing still while your mind wanders to the past or future.
Experts are particularly vulnerable to getting stuck in the past and future and having their curiosity work against them. Wondering how things could be different or if they ever will be.
Part of wondering what happens next is the thrill that it may not be all good. The Expert knows what is worth being afraid of, but a Beginner has yet to find out. That risk plunges them deeply into the present.
Staying in the present gives your curiosity a place to benefit you and enrich your life now.
Stay Humble
Opportunities for Shoshin are all in the present and available to the curious. But there is one final requirement to access them and the Beginner’s Mind and that is humility.
You have to be humble, like a Beginner, and know you have a very real chance of getting mud on your face when you enter The Beginner’s Mind.
If you’re a painter who could keep the paint within the lines, if you truly embrace your Beginner’s Mind—you may realistically make a mess and step out of those lines. You may break a taboo or bend a rule of your genre. You may discover a totally different style that is informed on an instinctual level by your experience but is free and unaffected by the criticisms of your thinking mind.
To stay in the Beginner’s Mind you must surprise yourself. You must walk into your studio or office and not know what is going to happen next. Here’s one final Zen saying for this is, “Not knowing is the most intimate.”
When a Beginner starts they have to act from a place of courage, because they do not know what is going to happen next and whether it will be good, or bad. They are already acting from a place when they get started—they’ve already faced and overcome a significant challenge before even beginning. They may embarrass themselves, and others may mock them for trying. But the only people worth talking to will respect them for trying. Like the elder Gym Bros respecting someone embarrassed for working out publicly and doing it anyway.
An Expert still has growing to do, they’re not exempt from that, their edge is just in a different place than a Beginner’s. For an Expert, their growth may be in fact helping Beginners and becoming the mentors themselves. This will put them in touch with their own Beginner’s Mind, like how a parent gets to rediscover and relive parts of their childhood while giving their child theirs.
This is why the same task by two different people can provide two very different lessons. The same book has new lessons to reveal that can only be learned by those who are re-reading it, as a Beginner.
You can only do this if you are willing to realize you may not have grasped it all the first time around. And this is why the ultimate obstacle to Shoshin is not experience, curiosity, or even presence, but actually humility.
An expert may believe they are too good for the basics, but real expertise is just mastery of the basics—the fundamentals. Any project will consist mostly of fundamentals, which a Beginner and Expert can both do. The Beginner will certainly learn something. But if you, as an Expert, can learn to stay humble and revisit the mine with a Beginner’s Mind, nourishment can be found there.
If you enjoyed this post, let me and Substack, know by clicking the ❤️ button on this post so more people can discover it.
Your support is appreciated.
And if you haven’t already you can subscribe here, it’s free:
If you’re a regular reader, the best way you can help is by recommending this post.
Thank you!