Now that Christmas has come and gone once again, it’s time for the reality to set in. For many people, the typical way to pay for Christmas gifts is to charge it all to credit cards and then spend the next year (or more) trying to pay it all back. That’s the ‘normal’ approach. If you want to master your finances and eliminate the stress associated with having debt, you need to intentionally control your money and plan ahead. There is a much better way to pay for Christmas than using debt.
Be Intentional: Create and Follow a Plan to Pay for Christmas
I used to do the same thing as everyone else when it came to Christmas shopping: go out shopping, but whatever I wanted to get for people, and charge it. I didn’t really have a plan, other than knowing who was on my list of gift recipients. The result was that I always spent more than I expected to, and always ended up in debt. While I didn’t go crazy with my shopping, I ended up in debt nonetheless.
As part of our plan to eliminate debt and control our finances, my wife and I formed a new plan – one that results in significantly less stress and no debt. Each year, my wife and I create our Christmas budget. We list everyone for whom we will buy gifts, along with the budget specific to each recipient. Next we add a line item to the Christmas budget for the unexpected gifts. Then we add a few hundred dollars as a cushion, since we buy some gifts earlier in the year. Finally, we divide the total by 12 – the amount we need to put into our annual Christmas fund each month.
In order to make it easier to manage, we also have a separate checking account dedicated to our Christmas fund. We set up an automatic monthly transfer to move the monthly Christmas savings amount discussed above into the Christmas checking account. Whenever buy buy anything for Christmas, we track it in the budget (per person) and transfer money back into our normal checking account to cover it.
If we want to spend more than budgeted for someone, the money has to come from somewhere – the point is to control your money. So if we want to spend more, we pull the “extra” from somewhere else in the budget. The result is that we never spend more than we have, we stay out of debt, and Christmastime (and the months following) are not spent stressing about how to pay off the credit cards.
Shopping for birthdays and other gifts can be handled the same way. We use the same process as for Christmas, complete with a “Gifts” checking account.
This year, consider using a plan to pay for Christmas (and other gifts) without debt or stress.
Maybe it’s just my perception, but it seems to me that too many people have become afraid of having to work hard. They seek to do only the barest minimum necessary to just eek by. They feel that the world owes them praise, recognition, and rewards (grades, money, promotions, etc.) just because they showed up. They give up too soon when results don’t come easily, they aren’t spoon-fed the answers, or they need to put in any “additional” effort. Honestly, this is just sad. When people refuse to do hard things, they rob society of what could have been and stunt their own self-esteem. A healthy culture demands that we do not just show up, but rather that we push ourselves to excel.
This topic has been on my mind quite a bit lately. I’ve had conversations with my son about this a number of times over the past few years, trying to instill in him a desire to push himself to not just meet the minimum requirements, but to demonstrate excellence; to choose doing difficult things on purpose, not merely to “bear the cross”, but to challenge himself, to build his character, to feel the enhanced sense of reward, and to establish a positive reputation.
Inspiration From A Book Title
While searching for Christmas gifts for my son this year, a book with an interesting title appeared in my gift recommendations on Amazon.com: Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations, written by teenage twin brothers Alex and Brett Harris. After reading the book description on Amazon, I immediately borrowed the book from the library and read it within a few days. The premise of the book is fantastic: that society is harming generations of young adults by setting expectations too low, and that teens specifically (though honestly, it applies to all of us) should do hard things for the benefit of not only themselves, but for others as well – but most importantly to glorify God. Whether or not you are religious in any way, the principles still stand. A culture that encourages people to do hard things, starting from a young age, will be stronger, more productive, happier, and more resilient. From the moment I saw the title of this book, I realized that I needed to write about this concept.
Why Do Hard Things?
If you do a Google search such as “why is it important to do things that are difficult or hard”, you’ll actually find quite a few results. Out of curiosity, I read a few of the top results to discover how other people felt about doing hard things. In particular, posts from Desk to Dirtbag, Marc and Angel Hack Life, and The Art of Manliness resonated with me. They all have solid ideas and viewpoints worth reading.
Based on my own experience, there are a number of benefits to doing hard things. The following list is certainly not exhaustive, but presents some key concepts of my ‘do hard things’ philosophy. These are in no particular order.
1. Savor Sweeter Success
Think about it. When you do something that is easy, how memorable is it? How about when you achieved something that was extremely difficult? Which ‘accomplishment’ would be more rewarding: walking 50 feet to your mailbox, or finishing your first marathon? Why? Because running a marathon is hard! You can probably walk to the mailbox and back without even thinking about it or breaking a sweat. I’ll bet you can’t even remember the first time you walked to the mailbox, but if you’ve run a marathon, you’ll never forget the first one.
The mere fact that something was hard to do makes the value of doing it – or even trying to do it – that much greater to you. In fact, if it was not only hard, but took numerous attempts, lots of training and practice, and significant effort, all the more rewarding it is when you finally succeed. The harder a thing is to do, the stronger the sense of reward.
2. Enjoy a More Fulfilling Life
Related to the first reason above, life is much more fulfilling when you realize that you have stretched yourself and accomplished hard things. How can you not feel better about yourself when you do hard things regularly? Certainly doing hard things is…well…hard. It can be frustrating while you’re in the middle of it, especially if you’re doing something hard that was not necessarily your choice (like a difficult school project or dealing with a tough problem at work). However, being in the habit of doing hard things will lead to a more fulfilling life. You can’t fool yourself – if you always look for the easy way out, avoid doing anything difficult, fear trying hard things because you might fail – or worse, you’re just plain lazy – you’re psyche will know the truth. Likewise, your psyche knows when you do hard things. Doing hard things can improve your self esteem and lead to greater fulfillment.
3. Build Confidence
As you take on more and more difficult challenges, you will gain confidence in yourself. The more hard things you attempt, the more hard things you will achieve. You will not always succeed, and often there will be many failures on the path to success. By definition, it will not be easy. If you keep at it, the number and size of your successes will grow. As this occurs, your confidence will grow because you will know that you are doing hard things. As your confidence builds, you will be less intimidated by difficult challenges and you will do more hard things. It becomes a positive feedback cycle.
4. Learn and Grow
Doing hard things requires that you stretch yourself. You will have to go outside your comfort zone. And you’ll probably have to learn new skills. In fact, sometimes the hard thing is specifically learning a new skill. Regardless, by doing hard things regularly, you will continue to learn and grow.
5. Exceed Your Own Expectations
We may attempt things that most people consider to be extremely difficult – like being a professional athlete. Or, maybe we just struggle with something that is difficult for us – like giving a public presentation if you’re shy. Either way, regardless of what it is that you do, if you persistently push yourself to do very hard things, you will more than likely exceed your own expectations. You will discover that you can actually do more than you thought possible. But you have to do more than ‘try’. You have to knuckle down and push. It might take many attempts. You will probably experience fear, frustration, and doubt. Eventually you will be able to look back and realize that you were able to achieve more than you thought you could.
6. Avoid Average
Anybody can do the easy things. Doing the bare minimum is the epitome of mediocrity at best (dare I say lazy?). Anyone can sit on the couch and stare at the television. Taking the easy route is boring. Why settle for being average? Wouldn’t it feel better to set yourself apart by doing things other people don’t or won’t – usually specifically because they are hard? We’ve all heard the refrain, “I could never do that!” Maybe. But did you even try? What if you could do it?
Find something that is interesting and fun, but that takes a lot of effort to learn. Become an expert at something you enjoy. Do the extra credit work. Learn something new, just for the sake of learning it. Challenge yourself. Volunteer – either for extra assignments at work, or to support charitable organizations. Exceed your boss’ or teacher’s expectations of you. Raise the bar. Just don’t settle for average. Anyone can do that. Average is nothing special. It’s bland, boring, and unattractive. You are a unique and valuable human being with plenty of potential; you were not meant to be average.
I’ll add a special note here. Obviously in the strict sense, ‘someone’ has to be ‘average’ because everyone can’t be the ‘best’. But by ‘average’, I mean specifically the attitude of doing nothing ‘extra’, settling for the bare minimum, and doing only things that are easy for you. Not everyone has the same abilities and characteristics, so you can be ‘above average’ by choosing to do things that are hard for you, regardless of whether they are easy or hard for others.
7. Earn a Positive Reputation
When you do hard things, people will absolutely take notice. From a purely practical (not necessarily selfish) standpoint, you will develop a positive reputation by consistently doing hard things. This can lead to things like better jobs, better assignments, raises, promotions, friendships, and more. It can also lead to opportunities you might never expect when others specifically seek you out.
If you’re a parent, your kids will absolutely notice when you do hard things (and conversely, when you avoid them). By setting a positive example, you are more likely to earn their respect, but more importantly, prepare them for a productive, fulfilling, meaningful life.
8. Change the World
People who do the hard things are the ones who make a difference. These are the people who change the world for the better. They don’t do it by sleazing out of work or avoiding challenges.
By ‘world’, I don’t necessarily mean all of humanity. Some people certainly have that level of impact, but you can change the world by making a positive difference to your local community, school, company, team, organization, or even just one person. Regardless of scale, leave the world a better place by being here. Stretch yourself and do hard things, not just for your own personal benefit, but for others as well.
Doing Hard Things – Putting My Money Where My Mouth Is
Of course there are endless examples of ‘hard things’ that I’ve done. While this post is definitely not about me, I thought it might be good to share some of these examples, not for my personal glory or recognition, but rather to demonstrate the some of the points I’ve discussed above.
Learning Trials Biking
If you’ve read anything on this website, there is no way you didn’t see this coming! If you want to learn how I got started in trials biking and what is trials biking, read this and this. In summary, I started learning trials biking at 47 (I’m over 50 now), while being quite out of shape.
Trials biking is not just ‘like riding a bike.’ It is extremely difficult. It involves falling, crashing, and failing over and over and over and over. In a lot of ways, it’s like solving a physical puzzle (the obstacle, trick, or ‘line’) with just you and your bike. But when you make progress, pulling of a new trick or riding a difficult line, the sense of reward is exhilarating. There’s nothing like it.
Why do I do it? Because it’s so hard most people quit or never try it. Because it’s cool as hell. Because the journey is hard, but fun. And because the reward is just so sweet.
Earning a Master’s Degree
While in my 40’s, I decided to get my master’s degree in systems engineering. This was nearly 20 years after I graduated college, so going back to school was tough (my bachelor’s degree is in electrical engineering – yes, that was also extremely difficult!). In three years I earned my MS in systems engineering while also working full time.
Here’s the kicker. By outward appearances, some folks going for an advanced degree (that their employer pays for) seem to be just seeking a piece of paper that leads to a higher salary or a higher paying job elsewhere. That was absolutely not my approach. I worked my ass off, often times spending 20+ hours a week on homework and projects – even 40 hours one or two times – while working full time. I graduated with a 4.0 (out of 4.0). But I earned it. I didn’t just do the minimum. I was there to learn. Not just for my own sake, but because I wanted to translate what I learned into practice at my job – which was the whole reason for going back to school in the first place! Not for a scrap of paper or just for money. I did more than was required on many, if not all, assignments and projects.
This was one of the hardest things I have ever done. It wiped me out. It was tough. And probably would not have been possible without the support of my amazing wife who took on a lot of added burden at home so I could focus on school. But I did it. And because it was so hard, and because I put so much more into it than others seemed to do, it holds tremendous value to me.
An Introvert In The School Play
I have to confess, I am shy and introverted, though much less shy than when I was younger. I was the kid who hid behind Mom’s leg when she was talking to people I didn’t know. I was the student who sat in the back row, trying to hide behind the other kids so the teacher wouldn’t call on me.
Back in high school, specifically because I’m shy, I decided to audition for the school play one year. I wanted to force myself way outside of my comfort zone, to expand my comfort zone. I was terrified – I’d never done anything like this before. But I actually got a part in the play, albeit a small one – though still a speaking part. It was hard, but I did it. I had a great time. I met new people. It was worth the experience.
Sick and Working Late
Just the other day, I was requested to complete an annoying, time consuming, and somewhat challenging task by the end of the day. That was already bad enough. What made it really difficult is that I was on teleconferences literally all day long, so I could not even start the assignment until late in the afternoon. To make matters worse, I was sick, so I felt absolutely awful (though at least I was able to work from home). Regardless, people were counting on me, so I kept working until I finished at 9 pm. This is a fairly mundane example, but it still counts as doing something hard.
Eliminate Your Excuses
Want an extreme example of doing hard things as a way of life? Read Can’t Hurt Me, by David Goggins. Trust me, this book will take away any excuses you think you have.
What hard things have you done? What hard things do you want to do? What hard things will you do? Do hard things. Spread the word!
Is fear holding you back? Learn how to move forward in spite of your fear. Don’t miss out on great opportunities. Photo by Markus Spiske from Pexels
We all feel fear for various reasons throughout our lives. It’s an instinctual response to protect us from harm. The challenge is to know when the fear we feel is based on a real threat and when it isn’t. Often when trying something new, we might have to take risks. This can result in feelings of fear. Fear is healthy when it protects us from real danger; however, it’s unhealthy when it holds us back from moving forward in a positive direction or drives us into fear-based decision making as a normal course of action.
Is Fear Holding You Back?
Throughout my entire life, I have struggled with my self-confidence. There are many opportunities I never took because I was more afraid of what could go wrong than I was motivated by what could go right. I was so afraid of failing or simply being embarrassed that I failed to act and missed out on good opportunities. Living in fear isn’t living life to its fullest. Don’t let fear rule your life.
I was a rather shy kid growing up – I’m still shy, though it doesn’t always show. One year in high school, I auditioned for a part in the school play: Arsenic and Old Lace. I actually got a small part (Mr. Witherspoon) in the play and spent the next several weeks rehearsing and learning my lines. When the time came for the show, I went out on stage and played my part the best I could. I was nervous when I auditioned and terrified to perform on stage in front of a large audience! I put myself in this position deliberately, even though it terrified me (what if I forget my lines?!) specifically for the purpose of pushing myself well outside of my comfort zone. I did it because it scared me. And it was absolutely worth it. I had a great time, met new people, and felt a huge sense of accomplishment.
In recent months, at nearly half century of age, I decided to go from a ‘couch potato’ with a desk job who never exercises to a trials biking athlete. Trials biking is not for the faint of heart – it involves hopping onto and off off obstacles and doing things I never even knew was possible using a bicycle. For essentially every new move or trick, I need to learn a new technique and skill. Sometimes when I get ready to try one of these new moves, I find myself gripped with fear. I’m not even tackling any high obstacles yet – often just wooden pallets a few inches off the ground – but the fear of falling, crashing, or otherwise getting hurt seeps into my brain. Interestingly, I have noticed other trials biking athletes at the professional level saying the same thing when trying some new stunt – albeit much more difficult and dangerous than anything I’m able to do.
I’ve realized that it’s just a mind game. You need to act in spite of the fear. You will feel fear, and that’s OK. Acknowledge it, but don’t let it have power over you. As long as what you’re about to do is legal, moral, and not likely to cause death or serious injury, set the fear aside in your brain and concentrate on what you need to do. Sometimes you’ll nail it, other times you’ll crash and burn. That’s OK! Get back up, brush yourself off, and try again. Learn from what doesn’t work. Experiment. Practice. Take smaller, more easily achievable steps when necessary. Be patient and persevere. While things can (and will) go wrong, the worst that you imagine almost never happens. You’ll find that most of the time, things turn out better than you expected. As you get used to acting in spite of fear, you will not only gain confidence, but also experience a richer life by achieving those things the fearful never attempt.
[Note: I originally wrote this as a life lesson for my son on February 10, 2018.]
A decade and a half ago, we had piles of debt (2 mortgages, 2 car loans, credit cards…), a single income, not much being set aside for retirement, and a child on the way. A large percentage of our monthly pay went towards debt, we never seemed to have any extra money, and everything about finances was stressful. Something needed to change, but we had no idea what or how.
When you’re in debt and don’t have control of your finances, life (and marriage) is much more stressful. Photo credit: Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels
Getting Started: A Glimmer of Hope
One day, the hosts of a podcast I listened to started talking about this guy named Dave Ramsey who had this program for getting out of debt – a radio talk show as well as some books. The podcasting couple – a husband and wife – had just started the program themselves. I figured, what the heck, can’t hurt, so I borrowed a copy of The Total Money Makeover by Dave Ramsey from the local library. Within short order, I’d read the book from cover to cover and had taken a bunch of notes.
After reading The Total Money Makeover, I discussed the concepts in the book with my wife. We agreed to give it a shot.
Fundamentals: Follow a Budget and Eliminate Debt (Forever!)
The plan Dave Ramsey teaches is pretty straightforward and it works. It’s simple, but it’s not easy. Dave developed his plan based on what he calls the “baby steps”, which he originally formulated from his personal experiences recovering from bankruptcy and becoming debt free, refined while teaching others how to do the same. Eliminating debt frees up your income which you can then give to charitable causes and invest for both retirement as well as future major expenses. One of the keys to doing this requires intentionally controlling your money, which is the purpose of a budget.
A Personal Budget: The Roadmap For Living Within Your Means
We started our journey by developing and living to a budget. I’ll probably discuss the details of budgeting in a future post. It seems counterintuitive, but having a budget was not constrictive, it was actually freeing! It also helped reduce stress. We looked at every dollar coming in, and used the budget to plan every dollar going out – including meeting the essentials (food, shelter, electricity, clothing) and paying off debt. Following a budget (i.e., a plan) also kept us from overspending and reduced impulse spending.
Paying Off Our Debt
Fortunately, our student loans had already been paid off when we started this journey, but we still had plenty of other debt. Now that we had made the decision to eliminate debt and live within our means, we could avoid additional debt while paying down the debt we had.
I had purchased a small condominium unit within a few years of graduating college. I moved away for a few years, but decided to rent out the condominium instead of selling it – probably not the best choice. It was a challenge keeping it rented, and even when it was rented, it was not always easy getting tenants to pay. Soon after starting the plan, we were able to pay of the remainder of the mortgage on the condominium by accelerating our payments – by this time, it was actually one of the smaller debts. Shortly after paying off the condominium, we were able to sell it.
Since the mortgage on the condominium was paid off when we sold it, the entire proceeds from the sale (minus realtor fees and taxes) were ours! We used this to our advantage by paying off the loans on our two cars and rolling the remainder into the mortgage of our primary residence, which we simultaneously refinanced at a lower interest rate (also eliminating PMI).
At this point, the only remaining debt was the mortgage on our primary residence. We had an emergency fund of about 6 months of expenses. It was time to start cranking up the retirement savings and saving for our son’s college education. And throughout this entire process, we were giving generously to our church and charitable causes.
When You Eliminate Debt, You Have Money (and Peace of Mind)
Following our new financial lifestyle means that we no longer borrow money and an comfortable emergency fund. That means when we want something that costs more than is available in the month’s budget, we have to be patient and save up for it. While this isn’t always easy, it does mean that we always have enough money for whatever we need, we have a much larger monthly cashflow due to having no debt payments, and there is almost no financially induced stress. It also means that when the unexpected occurs, we are able to adapt.
Sometimes the unexpected “emergency” is mildly annoying; other times, it can be financially catastrophic if you’re unprepared. Within a few years of overhauling our finances and financial practices, we hit a huge bump in the road, so to speak. I lost my job during the economic meltdown in 2008-09. However, because we chose to eliminate debt, live debt free, stick to a budget, and build an emergency fund, we were able to ride through almost a year of unemployment. It was stressful enough having no source of income; I cannot even imagine how stressful this period would have been if we still had piles of debt too.
After getting another job and getting back on our feet, we continued our plan. When it came time for replacing an aging vehicle, we saved up and bought a beautiful, low mileage, 2 year old car and paid cash (I literally just wrote a check on the spot). We took a couple expensive vacations (Disneyworld was one of them) by saving up and just paying for them without using credit. We save up a little every month into a Christmas fund for buying gifts each year; we budget the year’s gifts in advance and pay for everything without borrowing on a credit card. My trials bikes weren’t cheap, but I saved up and bought them without any debt. Of course we had some emergencies as well, some costing several thousand dollars each, but since we have chosen to eliminate debt, we just paid for them (though I grumbled about it a bit) – without borrowing money or stressing out.
The next big step to eliminate debt was to pay off our home mortgage. After paying off all of our other debt, we cranked up our retirement savings to 15%, began saving monthly for our son’s college education, and then accelerated our monthly mortgage principal payments for our home. When we approached the home stretch on the mortgage, we realized that we had some stock investments that were separate from our retirement funds – if we had remembered this earlier, we would have included this in our “baby steps” plan to eliminate debt. Regardless, it was there, so we used it to write a check for the remaining balance of our mortgage. In approximately a decade, we had gone from overloaded with debt, to completely debt free. And if you think freeing up money that went to consumer debt and car loans freed up your monthly cashflow, wait until you see what happens when you also have no more mortgage payments!
So, what’s the plan now with “all that money”? Well, it does not mean go go crazy, act irresponsible, and blow it all. Every month, that’s for sure. But it does mean that monthly expenses are more flexible, there is more “extra” money for going out and having fun, and we can save much more quickly to pay for the really expensive things like cars, my son’s college education (with zero student loans), remodeling and/or buying a new house, retirement, vacations, etc., without having to borrow money ever again.
You Can Do It Too!
I am not telling you all of this to brag about what we did, but rather to show you what is possible for you. You can do it, but you need to make a choice – eliminate debt (forever), purposefully control your money with a budget and a plan to love within your means, give generously, and invest in your future.
Final Thoughts
One of the primary motivations for publishing this blog is to take what I have learned in over a half century of living and provide it to you, so you can benefit from it. Personal finance is one area that I struggled with for a while, but now have some good habits and valuable wisdom that I can share. Now that I’ve shared some of my story here for context, going forward, I intend to include posts regarding specific details for winning at personal finances. Stay tuned!
Looking back throughout my life when I’ve tried to learn new skills, I’ve realized that I hadn’t been practicing in the most effective way, so my success was limited and progress slower than I’d expected. It was only recently in starting to learn to play guitar from Justin Guitar (www.justinguitar.com) that I started to appreciate more effective ways to practice. In fact, Justin has a whole area of his website devoted to practicing, though he also mentions some of these throughout his tutorials. A few key lessons from Justin stand out for me:
Set goals regarding what you want to achieve and why – this helps motivate you, especially when practice gets boring or you are trying to figure out how to do something really difficult.
“Practice makes permanent.” Note he says “PERMANENT”, not “perfect”! It means that whatever you practice will be ingrained and retained…all the more reason to practice doing the skill the right way!
Following closely on #2, start slowly and pick of speed as you improve. Remember that you want to learn how to do it right, so you need to move at a pace that allows you to do the skill correctly, not quickly, to start with.
Practice the fundamentals. Keep practicing them. Fundamentals are the foundation for more advanced skills.
“Don’t practice what you know, practice what you don’t know.” The stuff you haven’t yet mastered is the stuff you need to practice. Focusing on the stuff you don’t know can be frustrating simply because you don’t know it, but the only way to ever become good at it is to practice it. The natural inclination is to switch to what you can do since it’s easier and more fun, but that won’t help you progress.
‘Playing’ is not ‘practicing’. Practice is very focused on learning how to do something very specific (like playing a specific chord, changing between two chords, etc.) and do it properly. Playing is for enjoyment using what you have learned.
I used to mistake ‘playing’ for ‘practicing’, so it was much more difficult to learn a skill. Now I try to break things into smaller parts to focus on, then practice those specific things over and over – and try to get feedback to make sure I’m doing it correctly (preferably from an expert). That allows me to show a marked improvement on those fundamental skills, and lets me fit the separate fundamentals together more easily.
In addition to continually hammering on the fundamentals, it’s also important to take time to ‘play’. While effective practice is critical to learning something properly, you also need to play around and have fun with what you have learned so far. You need a balance between practice and play in order to maintain interest while also improving your abilities.
Another aspect critical to learning a skill is to be willing to have failures and setbacks along the way. Part of learning involves taking small risks, experimenting, and stretching yourself outside your comfort zone. A book I read recently(Just Start: Take Action, Embrace Uncertainty, Create the Future, by Leonard A. Schlesinger, et. al., Harvard Business Review Press, 2012) with respect to entrepreneurship discusses this at length – how to fail quickly, cheaply, and often. Why? Because you can also learn a lot from your ‘failures’. It is important to note here that ‘failure’ in this sense means that the result of an effort or experiment did not have the intended results. We leverage these failures by analyzing them, learning the proper lessons from them, and applying the resulting experience towards the next ‘experiment’. Using failures to build wisdom that guides us forward closer to our desired futures is a positive, healthy, productive attitude. Conversely, wallowing in despair over each failure is debilitating and destructive. Likewise, failing on purpose by not giving your best effort and then using that as an excuse to quit is unhealthy as well.
As I mentioned above, it was only recently that I’ve truly begun to appreciate how to practice properly and balance practice with play. While I am no means an expert (yet), I have used these techniques to improve my skills in photography, playing guitar, and learning trials biking. In each of these areas, I have watched myself progress – with the biggest leaps in progress following focused repetition of one or more fundamentals. Often you have only seen the end result where I seem to pick up some skill out of nowhere, What you typically have not seen is all the underlying practice. Maybe the once exception has been trials biking. How many times have you seen me attempting the same thing over, and over, and over, and over. How many times have you seen me fall off my bike – whether it be a simple ‘dab’, a controlled bail-out, a back-flop, or a launch over my handlebars? So when you see me actually successfully pull off a trick, you know it was not my first attempt – by that point I’ve tried it a zillion times, and probably crashed and burned the first half-zillion. You know, because you’ve seen a lot of the unsuccessful attempts and the hours upon hours of practice I put in. I didn’t just hop on a bike and nail a perfect endo first try – I face-planted quite a few times first (hint: that’s why I practice on the grass…it’s softer than pavement).
Hopefully you can benefit from this insight and get much more out of your practicing (of whatever skills you wish to learn). I sure wish I knew how to practice properly when I was a kid.
[Note: I originally wrote this as a life lesson for my son on September 25, 2017.]
Believe it or not, failure is an essential aspect of learning – whether you’re learning to ride a bike, developing a new technology, building a business, or simply learning a new subject in school. The goal is not to fail intentionally or to fail because you didn’t do your best, but rather to understand that when you try something new, failures are likely to occur. Every failure contains a lesson – this is what makes failures so valuable. The key is to learn the correct lessons from each failure and to adapt accordingly.
Unfortunately, fear of failure stops many people from even trying. The pain, frustration, cost, and embarrassment of their own past failures or mistakes teaches them that failure hurts – so they avoid failure (I struggle with this myself). The irony is that while failure can sometimes be difficult, being willing to fail and learn from it is what it takes to achieve great things. However, embracing failure does not mean taking dangerous risks and making huge “blind leaps”.
The secret is to learn how to take calculated risks toward your objectives. It’s important to guide your choices with some level of information and analysis. The trick is to know when to act since you’ll never have perfect and complete information. Then act (practice, experiment) in some small way and learn from what worked and what did not work. By constantly taking steps and keeping the risks relatively small, you’ll always be learning, growing, improving, winning. It’s certainly not easy, but it works.
James Dyson is a well known inventor and entrepreneur who embraces failure and emphasizes it’s important role in success. I recommend reading this article and listening to this interview with Mr. Dyson.
[Note: I originally wrote this as a life lesson for my son on April 15, 2016.]
You can become good (or great) at almost anything you desire. All it takes is practice. The better you want to be, the more practice it will take. Experts make difficult things seem easy but they had to practice a lot to become that proficient. If having a given skill is worth it to you, then learn the correct approach and practice, practice, practice! Then you will become the expert.
[Note: I originally wrote this as a life lesson for my son on August 22, 2016.]
