What changes if you stop waiting to feel ready—and start acting like the person you’re trying to become?

VagabondInk Sg
Jan 14
3 min read

HOW I ACTUALLY STARTED TATTOOING

(PART 1)

Some of my tattoo fake skin work

There’s never a good day to start the thing you really want to do.

There were a lot of false starts before I learned this. There’s no perfect moment. No aligning of the stars. You don’t get a sudden boost of confidence and suddenly everything begins.

When I finally started tattooing, it wasn’t because I felt inspired or brave.

Frustration drove me to start. I was so tired of being stuck not starting that it pushed me to just begin.

Here’s what I learned.

Just start. You will suck.

You will be bad at the new thing you are starting. That’s the price of admission.

Sucking is uncomfortable, but it’s essential. It’s a prerequisite to becoming good.

I strongly dislike the idea of “natural talent.” It’s mostly nonsense people use to explain success — or worse, an excuse to never start.

It was hard to admit I had no talent in the beginning of my tattoo journey. But it was also liberating. I knew talent wouldn’t save me.

Only doing real work — repetitions, or “reps” — would get me through the long period of being not very good.

Reps are boring — and that’s the point

When I started tattooing, I spent countless hours practicing on fake skin.

Hundreds of hours — 405 hours, to be precise. Circles. Lines. Simple designs. Over and over again.

They looked awful for a long time. Weeks went by with almost no visible improvement.

It was disheartening. And boring. Doing the same thing again and again, with very little to show for it.

What kept me going wasn’t a grand vision of becoming a great artist. Honestly, it was the fear of quitting. I was too stubborn to let that happen.

Forget “1% better every day”

The idea of “1% better every day” is everywhere. I can’t stand it.

I agree with the intention behind it, but it doesn’t reflect the reality of starting something new.

What I experienced while learning to tattoo were long plateaus with no visible improvement, followed by sudden jumps where something clicked — then just as quickly, periods of regression.

Two steps forward, three steps back. Progress wasn’t linear. It was lumpy.

The real skill wasn’t improving every day. It was showing up despite not improving.

That persistence builds the thick skin you’ll need later.

Track the work, not the feelings

I became obsessed with reps. With clocking hours. I tracked every minute I practiced tattooing.

Tracking hours doesn’t guarantee mastery, but it removes emotion from the practice.

On bad days, I stopped negotiating. I went robotic. Show up. Do the reps. Write the hours down. End of story.

Tracking your work is a way of signalling to yourself that you’re serious.

Like starting the timer on a run — once the clock is on, you’re live. So you get on with it.

Closing — Part 1

This phase of the journey didn’t look like much from the outside. The visible proof just wasn't there, yet.

There was no title, no validation, no clear signal that I was “on the right path.”

But what I was really building wasn’t just the skill — it was seriousness. I was training myself to just show up and do the work when progress was invisible.

How to work without encouragement.

How to keep going when motivation just isn’t there that day.

It would have been much easier to walk away, but I found my commitment and my endurance.

Part 2 is about how that quiet work translated into opportunity.