This past weekend, I was lucky enough to participate in a “latte art workshop” with a few of my Motley Coffeehouse co-workers, at Klatch Coffee in Rancho Cucamonga.

Whenever I go home for breaks and tell family and friends that I work part-time as a barista, I always have to embarrassingly admit that I can’t actually make pretty latte art-or any latte art for that matter. So when I saw that the Motley was offering free workshops at Klatch Coffee for baristas, I was elated; This was my chance to work on being a better barista, and I was definitely going to take advantage of it.

When the workshop started, I became oddly nervous. My hands were shaky and I was spilling milk left and right. In the car ride over, one of the Motley managers who was with me had been detailing how successful and impressive Heather (the person who was leading the workshop) is. This definitely made me more nervous. I didn’t want to mess up too badly, or look like a complete disgrace of a barista in front of someone who really knows what she’s doing. You see, Heather Perry is really, really good at what she does. She holds the 2003 and 2007 United States Barista Champion titles, plus the 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007 Western Regional Champion titles. She also finished 2nd in the world at the 2007 Barista Championships, and holds numerous other honors and awards, and is now currently the Director of Training and Consulting at Klatch Coffee.

I think you can all understand why I would be nervous about making latte art in front of someone with those types of credentials. I definitely had fun learning how to make cool designs out of milk foam, but I also found myself getting legitimately frustrated and mad at myself when my latte art came out looking like oblong blobs rather than symmetrical hearts and leaves.

What I wish my latte art looked like…

…What my latte art actually likes like.

As obvious as it sounds, getting really good at something takes a ton of time, practice, and patience, and this is something I often forget. Whenever I start a new activity, hobby, or job, I am guaranteed to cry at some point out of sheer frustration and feelings of inadequacy. I’m a fairly impatient person, and I don’t like the amount of time I have to wait before I get really good at something; I just want to be good right away. However, it is simply not realistic to expect that I could become an expert in something after only a few tries. Furthermore, most decent people do not expect you to be an expert at something when you’re first starting out. I remember literally crying on one of my first Motley coffeehouse shifts because I couldn’t remember how to make any of the drinks, and customers were getting impatient, and I just felt so overwhelmed and inadequate, but the manager shadowing me was so understanding and insisted that I was just learning, and it would get easier over time. Luckily for me, I stuck with it, and have now memorized all of our drink recipes-though my latte art is obviously still seriously lacking).

There is so much value in sticking things out, and pushing past the feelings of discomfort, frustration, and inadequacy that come along with starting any kind of new endeavor. I may not be as good as Heather at latte art, but I also have not had the years of experience that she has. Instead of getting discouraged when my latte art doesn’t look Instagram worthy, I should acknowledge and appreciate how much progress I have made since my first shift when I cried and didn’t even know how serve a cup of drip coffee. It seems that all of those cliche adages really are true: Practice makes perfect, patience is a virtue, and don’t cry over spilled milk (latte foam included).