I remember back in the day when I used to be the guy in charge of the drums at church. I didn't learn how to play drums, and only just picked up the drumsticks and tried to make whatever it was I was doing make sense.
Back then, we didn't have many members at the church, so at first I didn't feel any pressure at all. But as time went on and the members began to increase, I found myself dreading every day that I had to go to church to drum. And this was because I felt I was still a shitty drummer (I probably was) and the last thing I wanted was getting myself embarrassed in front of all these strangers by hitting the drums wrongly.
So quickly my fear grew, but I knew I couldn't avoid playing the drums because there was no one else to do it. My brothers were either playing the piano or singing, none of which I could do either. So rather than let that fear bring me down, it instead became a source of motivation for me.
I found myself paying more attention to drums whenever I walked past a church. I would go on YouTube to search for drum tutorials and practice them very early at church before other members start arriving. It got to the extent where I would randomly get the beats in my head, pull out my phone to record them by mimicking the sound with my mouth, and then try it out the next time in church.
To be fair, I never really got so good at playing the drums, but if there was a day I wouldn't forget, it was the day of our Thanksgiving service. Before that day, I had begged the pastor to invite a drummer to come play because I knew people from all over would be coming for that service and my anxiety and thinking I wasn't good enough made me not want to play.
Luckily for me, he invited both a drummer and a singer for the service, but then something amazing happened. Somewhere during the service, some church members had walked up to me outside and asked me to come take over the drums, because according to them, I was way better than the guy they had hired.
Unfortunately, I didn't go because I was scared, but the fact that they preferred me to someone I felt was a lot better than me, made me realize that maybe I wasn't giving myself enough credit.
