Fumbling is inevitable. And sometimes it never goes away. I swear one day I'll play the guitar. It's only taken five years to get one song, but its a song.

Be Quiet...

"Them: I got a mic. I'm just going to do it on the side. Make some extra money."

"Me: Okay, do you want to do ads or something?"

"Them: No, I want to voice anime and cartoons."

"PSA: Want to make money at voice-over? Do ads. Want to voice animation? Get an agent and good luck."

- WitchoftheWilde

I have a fish!

"People buy fish the same day they buy their tank. Unfortunately, to start a fish aquarium, you need to cycle your tank (grow bacteria that will eat the poison ammonia that fish poop causes and turn it into nitrate). This is best done without fish and can take a few weeks to a month or more. However, most people come into the hobby saying "I have a fish! Now what?" You learn that fish keeping is more about maintaining water that fish just happen to live in. It's a lot like learning chemistry more than just feeding fish."

- AGrainOfSalt435

Research First...

"I have a hobby goat farm. I say hobby because I got them all as babies, so they're just money pits at the moment (all about 8 months old right now). In the meantime, I've damn near made a career out of clipping hooves for other people who got a ton of goats and didn't know that they required hoof maintenance. The poor things are usually in a lot of pain by the time I get to them. Research your animals, people."

- CautiousShower

Swords Away

"Blacksmithing: "I've never forged anything, but I found some great spring steel so I'm going to make a sword. What else do I need?" Ummmm… First you need to forge 200 nails so you can learn proper hammer swings. After that you're ready to make a bottle opener."

- Crux1836

"I've scrolled so far for blacksmithing. I'm new, just took a class and built my own brake drum forge with a rail anvil. The first thing I'm planning to try to make with the forge is some for tongs out of mild steel bar stock, then it's tons of hooks and nails (which I've made already) before I get close to anything else. I'm thinking skewers for something to up the skill."

- beoheed

Less is More

"They want to make incredibly overly complicated recipes, OR they want to 100% exactly replicate one of the best beers in the world. They're almost paralyzed by fear of infection/contamination."

- Thirty_Helens_Agree

Lesson one... never lead with attitude. Unnecessary attitude is always a dead give away. And then people will be adverse to empathy and assistance. Smile and keep it simple.

Never "Ass"ume!

"They ask one of the 10 or so questions that get posted almost daily to r/writing, or they just assume they know everything already and their first draft is brilliant and won't hear anything to the contrary."

- SpookyGeek

CAUGHT ON FIRE

"First project! I'm making a baby blanket!" Crochet. And I can say this because I did this as well. It takes much longer than it seems like it should to make a blanket."

- angelerulastiel

"The first project I ever attempted was a blanket. Not a baby blanket. A full freaking blanket. I probably would have successfully finished a baby blanket, but my full blanket literally CAUGHT ON FIRE (unrelated to the crocheting process) 3/4 of the way through, and I've never attempted a blanket again lol."

- przybylowicz

People Explain Which Expensive Purchases Paid For Itself In The Long Run | George Takei’s Oh Myyy

Art Games

"I have a great idea for a new board game. I have never made a board game before. It's like a combination of Monopoly and Risk but I don't want to give more details because I don't want someone to steal my idea. Can anyone make art for my Kickstarter? I'll give you credit!"

- Drab_Emordnilap

How do you create this scene?

"Tales from r/blender... I'm still quite a beginner myself but some will just go: "How do you create this scene?" and show really complicated compositions with countless models and complicated materials that an artist must have spent weeks on. Some of them feel like downloading the software is already most of the work done. But this probably goes for most digital art forms."

- TINY-jstr

Black Thumb

"Why do my plants always die in a few weeks? I water them every day!!"

- floralinsight

Do Something...

"They talk about turning the hobby into a business."

- electrosonic37

"I'm a woodworker that's right there with you. I started selling stuff because I had to in order to make another thing, and now I'm looking to upgrade and reconfigure my entire shop so I can be more efficient, take on more work, and see if I can't take this thing full time. That's a scary jump, though."

- mypostingname13

Just leave it in the oven!

"Underbaking bread because they're afraid to burn it. It won't burn that fast! Just leave it in the oven!"

"ETA: I just want to say, for all the droves of people saying "undercooked is better than burnt" : the window between undercooked and burnt, with bread, is vast. If you like raw dough, sure, good on you, but bread doesn't go from undercooked to burnt in a split second the way other things do. If your bread is still pale on the outside, you can leave it in for at least another 10-15 minutes without it being "burnt" and that's being really conservative with my timings."'

- collinsvillain

"earned"

"Was never one to buy the whole get up before I felt I "earned" to look the part. I do Brazilian jiu jitsu, when it's time to spar I'll see someone dressed head to toe like a pro jiu jitsu grappler and I'll be intimidated… then we start going and I realize oh… this is their first day."

- checkyblecky

Material Items

"Bulk acrylic yarn. It's cheap and great for practice, but you quickly learn that it's not particularly comfortable."

- snarkybat

"sell it and buy the V8"

"If they ask how to swap an engine into their car or how to turbo their car, it's a sure sign that they're new to working on cars. The questions aren't necessarily bad, but there's so much work involved in the answer that those questions are way too vague. They're trying to get in way over their head if they don't have the basics figured out before hand. Ditto on people asking how they can add a lot of power to a base model Mustang or Camaro."

"There's nothing wrong with the base model, but there's a good reason that the answer is usually "sell it and buy the V8." You'd spend just as much money modding the V6 or turbo 4, and wind up with a vehicle that has maybe the same power output as the V8 at best, but significantly worse reliability. If you're trying to make power, your money very often is best spent starting off with the model that has the better engine."

- TheBertinator3000

Walmart Wilderness

"Hiking. New hikers do one of two things. They either load themselves down with 100 pounds of gear they will never use or they think they can survive a week long hike with nothing but a granola bar and a Walmart pocket knife."

- Frosty_Fox_5552

"Hikers in Arizona, "we're just going for a quick hike, this water bottle will be fine" *freaking dies because it's 118°f and they didn't bring enough water. Also hikers in Arizona, "it's hot... i'm gonna bring 3 gallons of water" 10 minutes into hike "forget I'm so tired, this crap weighs a ton."

- seuche23

100 Proof

"Talking too much to prove what they know. I have been very guilty of this. someone who is experienced and skilled at a given activity will tend to just shut up and do it, whatever the activity may be."

- smegmaroni

"I've noticed I do this in a relatively new career with a different company. I know I don't know a fraction of what I eventually will but damn if I don't talk like I do. Knowing your flaws is the first step to overcoming them."

- llcolinj

Drow Rogue

"My character is a drow rogue. They are chaotic neutral and stick to the shadows."

- metalmuzic

"Remember running my first ever campaign with my friends (also their first time playing DnD) and they all told me their alignment was somewhere on the good scale (mix of neutral and chaotic), only for them to bully every shopkeeper, guard and child they came across."

- Just_Here_For_A_Wank

be best

"They google "the best..." and then they try to explain to you why that manufactured product listed in half of the links from the first google search results page is "the best."

- BusyPooping

Music Theory

"Frequent post on r/musicproduction:"

"Hi everyone! I'm new to all this and I have zero experience making music. Never had any kind of lessons and I've never touched a keyboard and really all I've ever done with music is bob my head along with it in my car. I've never heard of music theory and I'm not really interested in it. So I bought a MacBook Pro and Ableton 11 and the best interfaces and microphones and midi keyboards I could afford. I'm going to make sick beats and change the music industry. How do I get started?"

- X_PRSN

What have we learned?

Learn. Research. Know why you're doing it. Be prepared to fail. Good luck.