If you want to be a master of something, you first have to get comfortable being an imperfect beginner.
For anyone getting into digital clinical safety—or expanding their field of expertise—know this: by simply starting, you are already halfway there.
You might spend too much time assuring a small change and later wonder why your approach wasn’t more commensurate.
You might over-catastrophise a risk assessment, resulting in an unrealistic score.
You might run a hazard assessment workshop and then reflect on what you could have done better.
Should you have given a demo first?
Reduced the number of attendees?
Changed the time allocation?
Should you have prepared a hazard log in advance, or used a different hazard identification technique?
For your first CSCR, you may wonder where to start. You might miss references, forget to include evidence, or struggle to articulate your argument as clearly as you know you can.
And that’s okay.
Those we consider masters have been wrong so many times they’ve lost count. That is the road to mastery—and it’s how we learn and grow.
Don’t be afraid to start.
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes.
Don’t be afraid to learn.
One day, months or years from now, when you are a master in your industry, you’ll look back and be grateful for every mistake you made and every lesson you learned along the way.
As a community, we should support each other’s growth. We need to create a safety net—one that allows people starting out to feel safe enough to make mistakes, learn from them, and improve.
And when you reach mastery, the baton is passed-Although the learning never stops.
You can choose to keep your hard-won knowledge and the lessons of your journey to yourself…
or you can use them to motivate, support, and develop others.
If there are people along the way who make you feel “less than” for making mistakes, remember: that says far more about them than it ever will about you.