Learning to suck.

Want to get good at something? Learn how to suck at it. Actually, in the beginning of any activity, you're probably going to be pretty bad, so it's not so much about learning how to suck, but rather, learning how to deal with the fact that you suck at it for the moment.  

That's the key actually. You're only going to suck for the moment, and the greater your tolerance for being bad, the greater your progress will be.  Unless you can begin to make tons of mistakes and begin to learn from them, you won't be able to grow.

I ran into a wonderful example of this recently. I was sitting in a cafe and heard an American guy speaking in Japanese to a woman. I thought his Japanese was pretty bad. In actuality, his pronunciation was pretty bad. As I continued to listen, I realized that his Japanese was actually great. I speak some Japanese and although I think my accent is much better than this guys, he can speak much more than I can. He has a much broader command of the language. This is due to the fact that he's willing to speak again and again and again(I asked him.) 

I have tended to be extremely cautious in my speaking of Japanese. I want to sound perfect and don't feel comfortable taking chances. Ultimately, this has really hindered my progress. 

I notice that in the areas of my life where I excel, I got to the point where I was willing to be bad, really bad until I got good at it.