Shuffling a deck of cards reminded me what it takes to learn
Experience is the best teacher. Just do the darn thing and you'll get better.
I host a game night with my friends every two weeks. We play board games, card games, and sometimes end the night with Mario Kart. Occasionally, we'll play a game that calls for a traditional deck of 52 playing cards. The most recent example I can think of is Michigan Rummy—I'm not sure how well-known it is, and some of the rules might have been modified or made up by my friend. It's quite fun. When we play a card game like this one, typically we cycle clockwise such that everyone has the opportunity to shuffle and deal the cards for that round. There comes a point where you've played card games long enough where you can no longer mix the cards up poorly or let someone else shuffle for you 😆. My friends offered to teach me to shuffle correctly, and I took them up on the offer.
Shuffling a deck of cards is a tricky skill to get right the first time but it's mechanically simple. I've been shuffling cards the "right way" ever since then (perhaps 18 months ago). From my first ever try to the last time I shuffled a deck, I've made immense, noticeable progress. Sure, I mess it up sometimes, but it's almost instinctual at this point on what I have to do with my hands. You can call it instinct, muscle memory, intuition, whatever. The point is that this experience was a small but potent reminder of what it takes to improve. It's obvious, but sometimes it just takes something as seemingly trivial as improving your card shuffling skills to internalize a life lesson like this: do the thing enough times and you'll get better. Duh.
This goes for learning a programming language too. This experience informs my hesitancy to rely too much on an LLM to generate code for me that I don't understand: I won't learn. So I would rather do the thing, learn, and take the time to get better even if it slows me down. I will still get the thing done. It's just that I derive immense satisfaction from knowing what I'm doing.