The First Pancake

What if your first attempt isn’t a failure; it’s information? In this Sunday Seed, Charlotte shares a favorite family tradition and the lesson hidden in the “first pancake.” A lighthearted reminder about being a beginner, learning from mistakes, letting go of perfectionism, and giving yourself room to grow. Because sometimes the only way to get better is to make the practice pancake first.

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Hey friend, welcome to Send A Seed. I'm Charlotte Edwards, and I believe small seeds create big impact. Each week, we'll plant one. Let's dig in When my son was little, Saturday morning pancakes were a thing at our house. We didn't just make one kind. He wanted chocolate chip pancakes, blueberry pancakes, regular pancakes. Everybody had their favorite. But there was also one pancake that nobody wanted, always the first one. I don't know what it is about the first pancake, but it never seems to come out quite right. Maybe the griddle isn't hot enough yet, or you pour too much batter, or somehow it ends up looking like some kind of weird configuration. But whatever happens, I would always take that first pancake and put it off to the side. That was the practice pancake. Then we'd adjust the heat, figure out the timing, and keep going. And I hadn't thought much about it in years. But about a week or so ago, my son and his girlfriend were in the kitchen making pancakes. I really wasn't paying attention to what they were doing until I overheard him say something that made me smile. "This is just the first pancake. Don't worry, we'll put it off to the side. The first ones never come out the way you want." Then he told her, "It's the practice pancake." I thought, "Well, apparently I taught him something." And yes, technically, I taught him how to make pancakes, but I think there's a pretty good life lesson hiding in there, too. Because the first pancake isn't bad, it's information. You find out if the griddle needs to be hotter, you need a little less batter, you need to wait a little longer before you flip it. You learn something. You adjust, and the next one gets better. That's actually how we learned to make the chocolate chip pancakes, too. When my son was little, we'd load those things up. Half the time, the chocolate would burn on the griddle before the batter even cooked through. Or he'd grab handfuls of chocolate chips and dumped in way too many, and we'd have a mess all over the place before the pancake even made it to the plate. But we didn't stop making chocolate chip pancakes. We figured it out. Fewer chips, lower heat, add them after you pour the batter instead of before, and eventually, we got pretty good at making chocolate chip p- pancakes. It's funny because we're willing to learn that way with something as simple as breakfast, but we don't give ourselves the same freedom with the rest of our lives. We try something for the first time and expect ourselves to know how to already do it. We start a new job or take on a new role, learn a new skill, or try something that scares us, and when it doesn't go perfectly, we're quick to decide we're not good at it instead of saying, "Well, that taught me something." Somewhere along the way, we got really comfortable at doing the things we already know how to do. Because being good at something, of course, feels good. Being a beginner doesn't always But you can't get better at something you're unwilling to be bad at first. We expect third pancake results when we're still on pancake number one This week, instead of judging the first attempt, get curious about it. What did it teach you? What would you change next time? Then try again because the first attempt isn't always supposed to be the finished product. Sometimes it's just the practice pancake. And maybe that's why hearing my son say it all these years later made me smile because I thought I was teaching him how to make pancakes. Turns out I might have been planting something too. Be willing to be a beginner, make the first pancake, learn from it, and then make another. That's your seed. Now go plant something good