Interestingly, I had a discussion just today with a colleague who was put off by the manner and tone an individual was using to provide valuable insights during a teleconference. I had previous interactions with the individual who was providing the feedback, so I understood that right or wrong, that was his style. I told my colleague that the person was providing valuable feedback, probably earned through some painful lessons, despite the somewhat tactless approach he used to convey his points.
One of the reasons I’m able to work with just about anybody, is that I realized that everyone has their own set of ‘filters’ through which they experience the world. These filters not only bias the way in which people perceive the world, but also the way the interact with it, including with other people. Additionally, not everyone has learned how to communicate effectively. Top it all off with individual quirks, some more pronounced that others, and you can get some rather interesting interactions.
I’ve found that the trick is to separate the personality from the message. While some people are utterly toxic, others just have certain idiosyncrasies to their approach. Once you understand a person’s style, even if you don’t particularly like it, you can still work with them effectively. Maybe you don’t want to invite them over for dinner, but at least you can interact with them and not get all bent out of shape. Another key is to realize that most of the time, it’s never about you – even if the person you have to deal with is somewhat obnoxious. Finally, it’s just not worth the energy to get all bent out of shape over someone’s personality, particularly is you have to work with them (of course harassment, bullying, threatening, etc. is never acceptable, but that’s a different story altogether).
The part of the title that mentioned being easily offended is why I clicked the link, but that was only one little piece of the article; the author offers 7 additional maxims that amount to the fact that you need to ‘own’ your own life, control what is within your control, and don’t cede control to other people or things you cannot change. I highly recommend reading the entire article, and really reflecting honestly on the 8 points. They are proven concepts that increase the likelihood of living a happier, more fulfilling life.
“Everything we think, say and do in life is a choice. Regardless of what’s happening to us, we always have a choice in how we respond, and when we leave our focus and energy there, we find ways to win and succeed.”
In support of a renewed emphasis on safety in the workplace, I shared a personal anecdote to my team that stresses the importance of speaking up when you see a potentially dangerous situation or behavior. I’ve shared that story here as well.
Given that safety is at the forefront and “see something, say something” is a behavior we want to encourage, I wanted to share a personal story to demonstrate an experience I had many years ago that really stuck with me.
When I was a child, my family spent a great deal of time participating in various outdoor activities – boating, fishing, camping, hunting, etc. So when I was old enough, I enrolled in a firearms hunting safety course, which was a legal requisite for obtaining a firearms hunting permit. The course consisted of reading a book and attending several classroom sessions held at a local sportsmen’s club, concluding with a written test.
As you can imagine, firearms safety is a critical aspect of handling firearms – not just while hunting, but at all times. During one particular classroom session, a number of various firearms were placed on a table at the front of the classroom, presumably to show us various types of firearms used for hunting. As the class began, one instructor started his lecture, while another instructor wandered around the table with the assorted collection of shotguns and hunting rifles. He’d occasionally pick one up, mess around with it, point it at various things around the room (though never aiming toward any people, mind you), but generally doing things you just should not be doing with firearms. I thought what he was doing was rather odd and probably a bad idea, but didn’t say anything (I was extremely shy back then – significantly more so than today, though I am actually still somewhat shy, believe it or not). I just watched as the man got more and more bold with his unsafe behavior. I never said anything. Let that sink in: I knew it was unsafe – potentially deadly – yet I never said anything.
About five minutes into the lecture, the instructor who was “playing” with the firearms picked up a shotgun, aimed it at something on the side wall (again, not in the direction of any people), and squeezed the trigger. If you’ve never heard a shotgun being fired inside a building – and I hope you never do – I can assure you, it gets your attention.
As soon as all of the students in the room re-composed themselves, the instructor who was giving the lecture asked whether any of the students had noticed the behavior of the other instructor (prior to the firearm discharge) and why none of the students had spoken up about it, since it was clearly unsafe. The instructor then spent some time cautioning us to not only be extremely aware of our own behaviors and how to safely handle guns, but also to speak up and say something if they see others behaving in an unsafe manner.
In case you were wondering, the shotgun was not loaded with live ammunition – it was just a “blank” (i.e., lots of noise, but no projectile). As you can imagine, this is an incident that I will never forget. And thankfully, it was a staged event where nobody was injured (or killed).
Just like I struggled with having the courage to speak up when I saw the instructor mis-handling the firearms, I would encourage all of you to speak up if you see unsafe behavior at your workplace – or anywhere else, for that matter.
Whether chasing a challenging goal or just trying to accomplish a mundane ‘everyday’ task, just taking the first step is often one of the most difficult hurdles to overcome. Regardless of whether the obstacle is fear (of success or failure), lack of motivation, lack of information, or any other myriad reasons, the only way to get through is to move forward.
While the fact that you have to actually do something to get started seems intuitively obvious, it still helps to be reminded. Plus, knowing something and actually doing it are two different things. Lately I have been reading books like a crazy person. A number of the books I have read recently, as well as some I have read in years past, explicitly address the importance of just getting started, offering techniques to overcome the inertia of inaction. My own experience aligns with what I’ve read, in both my professional and personal life.
What Do the ‘Experts’ Say About Getting Started?
Here are some books that you may want to read that cover various aspects of getting started. Each of these books addresses different pieces of the puzzle. I have found that there is no panacea, no ‘one-size-fits-all’ method for improving any aspect of life and productivity is no exception. Reading multiple books and studying a variety of systems provides a diverse set of perspectives and techniques from which you can synthesize the techniques that work best for you.
Start: Punch Fear in the Face, Escape Average and Do Work That Matters, by Jon Acuff (Theme: Always be starting)
Atomic Habits: an Easy & Proven Way to Build Good Habits and Break Bad Ones, by James Clear (Theme: Create positive, manageable, “low-friction” habits to overcome inertia and build sustainable momentum)
The War of Art: Break Through the Blocks and Win Your Inner Creative Battles, by Steven Pressfield (Theme: Overcome The Resistance, which is always fighting to hold you back and keep you from starting, particularly with creative works)
Just Start: Take Action, Embrace Uncertainty, Create the Future, by Leonard A. Schlesinger and Charles F. Kiefer (Theme: Use low-risk experiments and small steps to adapt to new/unknown types of work, learning from low-consequence failures)
Eat That Frog!: 21 Great Ways to Stop Procrastinating and Get More Done in Less Time, by Brian Tracy (Theme: Leverage various techniques to overcome procrastination and get going; start with the most ‘distasteful’ thing to get that out of the way up front)
Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity, by David Allen (Theme: Identify the specific next action to overcome lack of action caused by ambiguity)
Practical Examples
A handful of personal examples come to mind with respect to getting started. I’m sure there are many more, but these are fairly poignant.
As an engineering supervisor, I have had employees who struggled with making progress on their assignments – in fact, they specifically struggled with getting started. After several discussions with me regarding their assignments, they still appeared to be stuck. In these cases, I explained that I was not going to judge them for imperfection of works in progress. Next, I told them that I could not help them unless they picked a direction and started moving. Once they started doing something (anything !), then I could provide coaching and support; however, as the saying goes, “you can’t steer a parked car.” This approach usually helps.
Examples abound in everyday life as well. For example, there are weekends when either the weather isn’t very inviting or I’m just not particularly motivated, but I should be riding my trials bike. Not out of duty (it’s certainly not drudgery!), but because I love trials and because you only get better by riding more. After realizing that I’m just fighting my own internal resistance, I usually try a very simple technique: just begin doing something related to getting outside to ride my bike. Usually I going to my bureau and start taking out the clothes I will ride in. After that, I change into those clothes. Then maybe I’ll get the GoPro ready, get a bottle of water, and so on. The key is to start by doing a very easy activity that moves me toward my objective. When that activity is complete, I start another.
After the inertia of starting has been overcome, sustaining momentum to keep going gets easier. It’s much less difficult to keep moving than it is to start. Once you realize this fact, practice building self-awareness so that you can recognize and identify your source of resistance, and overcome it by just getting started. Study strategies and tactics discussed in the aforementioned books and any other sources that you find. Leverage what they have learned, and tailor your personalized approach through experimentation.
In an instant, my world turned upside down. For all I knew, my son – our only child – was dying in my arms. It was Christmas Day, 2018. Only minutes earlier we’d eaten breakfast after opening our gifts, but now my son was non-responsive, convulsing, gurgling, and frothing at the mouth. He complained of stomach discomfort after breakfast, but that was certainly no cause for alarm. Though gripped with fear and terror, I fought to remain calm and focused to ensure that I could make good decisions and avoid making the situation worse. Immediately I yelled to my wife to call 911 while I positioned my son to avoid injury during his seizure. I literally thought to myself, “is my child going to die in my arms?” Finally, after an agonizing minute or two that seemed like an eternity, my son’s body relaxed and he began to become aware of his surroundings once again. Soon after, the ambulance arrived.
After our son was rushed to the nearest emergency clinic, a CAT scan revealed a large abnormality in his brain – what appeared to be a large cyst, about 2 inches in diameter. Based on the results of the CAT scan, our son was then transported by ambulance to the hospital. An MRI confirmed that the abnormality was indeed a cyst. Surgery was scheduled to cut drainage slits (fenestrations) in the cyst membrane to allow the spinal fluid to naturally reabsorb.
Having any surgery can produce anxiety, but this wasn’t just any surgery – it literally was brain surgery: cut a hole in the skull and poke instruments into the brain. It’s not something I’d want to go through, and it sure as hell wasn’t something I wanted my child to have to endure. Not only that, but we had to wait a week for an opening in the hospital’s surgery schedule. I wrote down some of my thoughts and feelings during this time. On the day of surgery, I wrote:
"9:20 am: Getting ready to leave for the hospital for [my son’s] surgery. I'm feeling very anxious. Almost hard to breathe at times. Everything is expected to go well, but still very nerve-wracking. Trying to remain calm and appear calm to avoid freaking out everyone else. I hate this waiting. Just want it to be over."
After the surgery was complete, the surgeon met with us while my son was recovering in the intensive care unit. He was in a lot of pain, and on strong antibiotics that caused extreme discomfort. Unfortunately, when they entered my son’s brain, what they initially encountered was not what they had expected based on the MRI. A new game plan would be formulated and another surgery was scheduled.
Thankfully, the second surgery went as expected. The neurosurgeon told us that the prognosis was good and that the permanent success rate of this type of procedure was approximately 90%. Soon my son was released from the hospital. Over the coming months, the incision healed and the subsequent MRIs indicated that the cyst was properly draining so that pressure was relieved on the surrounding brain tissue. Other than seizure medication and the periodic neurologist checkups and MRIs, life went back to “normal”.
10% Chance
Flash forward two years to December 2020. During a regular follow up consultation, the neurologist explained to my wife and son that based on the latest MRIs, it appeared that the cyst fenestrations had sealed up. The cyst was growing again. Another surgery was necessary.
Since the initial drainage slits had ceased functioning properly, the plan for the upcoming surgery was to attempt using another fenestration procedure if conditions looked favorable for that approach during the surgery. Otherwise, the backup plan was to install a shunt that drains the spinal fluid into the abdomen – a concept that really freaks me out. While shunt installation is apparently a ‘routine’ procedure, the potential complications are horrific: blindness, infection, overdrainage, even death.
“When the shunt allows cerebral fluid to drain from the brain’s ventricles more quickly than it is produced, the ventricles can collapse, tearing blood vessels and causing bleeding in the brain or blood clot, marked by severe headache, nausea, vomiting, seizure and other symptoms. This risk occurs in approximately 5 to 10 percent of people with shunts.” (Source: Johns Hopkins Medicine)
Neither procedure is guaranteed to last a lifetime, so even if a shunt was necessary, my son might have to go through this all over again at some indefinite future date. Or it could be a permanent fix. While the success rates are fairly high, there is still risk. Since having seizures is one of the potential symptoms of failure and my son will be driving in less than two years, this brings a whole new level of concern. Somehow, we often seem to focus on the worst that can happen.
Anxiety and Anticipation
Surgery was scheduled for early April of 2021, giving us four months to wait. Four months of not knowing what the future would hold. Four months to dredge up and replay the events of Christmas two years prior. Four months to reflect on what this means for my son and what he needs to process mentally. The day before the surgery, I reflected on the future:
“Either way, [whether fenestrations or a shunt are used,] this is very stressful... mostly because of what my son will have to go through. It certainly could be much worse, I know. But I hate that my son, brave as he is, will have to deal with this for the rest of his life, because any solution could stop draining at some point and require another surgery, even with the shunt.”
In the weeks leading up to my son’s next brain surgery, my anxiety level increased – slowly at first, but accelerating as the date loomed closer. However, I couldn’t afford to let fear and worry occupy my attention and cause me to lose focus on completing my responsibilities. I still had to be a good husband, father, employee, and leader. Not only is attending an extended ‘pity party’ non-productive, it’s also emotionally draining.
In order to cope with the stress and anxiety in the weeks leading up to the surgery, I intentionally avoided dwelling on negative outcomes or fear itself. Since I often do fall into the trap of entertaining worst-case negative fantasies, this was a bit novel to me, but very helpful. Several techniques proved useful:
Avoid playing ‘victim’: It’s not personal, it’s not all about me, and I can’t change it. It’s not the end of the world. There is a high probability of success. No complaining or seeking sympathy.
Focus on the positive: This is difficult for me, but I tried to focus on positive outcomes instead of negative possibilities.
Talk it out: Especially in the last few days prior to surgery, I shared my thoughts and feelings with a handful of people. While receiving empathy does feel good, verbalizing my fears and focusing on the positive was more fruitful.
Compartmentalize: Since dwelling on uncertainty and factors outside of my control changes nothing (except my anxiety levels), why bother? I visualized picking up my worry, placing it in a ‘timeout’ corner, and turning my back to it. I spoke to my worry, telling it that I would not give it any of my attention. I acknowledged it, then ignored it as best I could.
Fortunately, my coping mechanisms paid off. While my stress did increase as the number of days until surgery diminished, I was able to maintain focus and remain effective in my responsibilities at home and at work. Only on the night before surgery did I lose any sleep due to anxiety related to my son’s condition.
Perspective
Surgery was scheduled to begin around 7 am. After a couple hours of waiting, my wife and I were informed that the procedure went smoothly and our son was in the recovery room. A shunt was not necessary (whew!) and the fenestration was performed successfully.
Later that day, I visited the cafeteria located in the hospital basement in order to buy lunch for my wife and myself. In a somewhat comical twist, the panini heating machine that the cook used to heat my wife’s sandwich billowed smoke enthusiastically. Moments later, the acrid sandwich smoke set off the fire alarm throughout the entire hospital. After paying the cashier, I slunk away feeling guilty, only to be detained at the elevator along with several other hospital guests by the fire safety response personnel. Soon firemen appeared, fully decked out in their fire suits and hats, wielding their firefighting gear. For safety, we could not leave the area – neither by elevator nor by stairs.
As minutes slowly ticked away, the tension noticeably increased in some of the waylaid guests – worried parents of child patients. Like me, they had left their children for what they thought would be just a few minutes so that they could obtain nourishment. I soon came to realize that fenestration of a brain cyst, while certainly serious, is also comparatively trivial.
Eventually the fire alarms cleared and guests were allowed to leave the cafeteria. As a testament to just how aware and caring the entire staff is at Connecticut Children’s Medical Center, the fire safety personnel directed parents who appeared to have the most urgent need to return to their children into the first elevator car that arrived following the ‘all clear’ notice. Due to COVID-19 restrictions, that meant only three of us were ushered into that first car.
As the elevator rose, the two anxious mothers sharing the elevator with me briefly shared why they were here: cancer had returned to one child; severe pain (no cause offered) tortured the other child. Suddenly, brain surgery and cyst fenestration was no big deal. Mere hours following surgery, my son was recovering quickly, with miraculously little pain. His diagnosis was certainly not terminal, despite the possibility that he’d have to return for future surgical treatment. And we’d be released from the hospital later that afternoon. Honestly, I felt somewhat guilty – not only for taking a precious spot on the first elevator ride after the fire alarm (and for being involved in causing it in the first place), but also because through all of the self-centered anxious drama in my own brain, I had failed to realize that my son’s condition could be much, much worse. In fact, for some children and their parents right here in this very hospital, it was significantly worse. This humbling experience notably realigned my perspective.
You’re Not Alone
I don’t share this story to shine the limelight on myself out of dramatic vanity, but rather because, just possibly, you are going through something similar. Maybe your situation is much worse than ours; maybe our son’s experience puts yours into proper perspective. In times like these, it’s easy to feel like you’re the only one suffering; you aren’t. I wrestled with the decision to share my son’s medical history in such a public way; however, I believe it is important to let others know that they are not alone, whatever the cause of their struggle.
Additionally, difficult experiences produce wisdom, often forged in a crucible of suffering. Sharing hard-earned wisdom multiplies the positive results and brings deeper, richer meaning to the struggle. I offer the following bits of wisdom from my experience:
Feeling fear and anxiety is normal (but don’t let it control you)
In an emergency, don’t panic; force yourself to focus on what needs to happen so that you can make good decisions during the crisis
To an extent, you can compartmentalize your anxiety to focus on the now
Keep it in perspective: there is often someone who is worse off than you
You’re not alone – whatever you’re going through, others have endured similar (or worse) situations
If this story has helped you in any way, please let me know. Also, if you have gained wisdom with respect to coping with stress and anxiety of your suffering child or loved one, please share what you have learned.
Several weeks ago I read an article by Eduardo Scheffler Zawadzki on Entrepreneur entitled Nick Cave and the secret to silencing the voice of doubt. While I am not familiar with Nick Cave, I found it interesting that someone with popularity and success can still struggle with fear and doubt. If someone who is in the limelight struggles with self-doubt, then we should not be surprised when it happens to us.
While I suggest reading the entire article, there are a few select quotes I’d like to highlight.
“In his little text Nick Cave explains that this voice [of doubt] is the true enemy of aspiration. A cruel command that orders us to distance ourselves from a possible better version of ourselves. Without realizing it, many of us fall for their game and, scared, we give up.”
“We constantly judge ourselves, we disqualify ourselves, we scoff at our efforts. We deny our little achievements and, without help from anyone else, we managed to fall apart.”
And finally, my favorite quote from the article:
“If you allow the battle to be won by your homunculus, if you surrender to bitter self-criticism, you run the risk of existing defeated and frustrated, eternally punishing yourself with dislikes like a little tyrant. But if you believe in yourself, if you have the courage to fight against the dark echoes of doubt that you engender, sooner or later you will realize that in the process you have created something unique, beautiful and valuable.”
The word ‘homunculus’, translated literally as ‘little man’ from Latin, means a fully-formed tiny human being. Cave refers to the ‘homunculus’ as the inner voice in our heads that repeatedly tells us we’re not good enough. We need to fight that ‘homunculus’ within each of us: stand up to the inner voice of criticism.
Have you ever read a book and said to yourself, “this should be required reading…for everyone!” Everything Is Figureoutable, by Marie Forleo certainly fits that description. The title itself says it all. In a nutshell, the idea is that having a belief that you can figure out anything forces you to eliminate excuses and focus on finding solutions. This applies whether you have an immediate problem, or whether you are stretching towards achieving your goals, “everything is figureoutable.”
In the first few pages, Marie describes her mother, who was constantly amazing her with the ability to solve problems that seemed not only difficult, but outside of her abilities. On one particular occasion, her mother’s favorite transistor radio broke, and Marie came home to see her mother fixing it.
“Hey, Mom, how do you know how to do so many different things that you’ve never done before, without anyone showing you how to do it?”
She put down her screwdriver, turned to me, and said, “Don’t be silly Ree. Nothing in life is that complicated. You can do whatever you set your mind to if you just roll up your sleeves, get in there, and do it. Everything is figureoutable.”
–Everything Is Figureoutable, by Marie Forleo
I absolutely loved that introduction to the phrase that became the title of this book!
There are several things that I really like about Everything Is Figureoutable. First, Marie Forleo is totally down to Earth. Her style is non-nonsense, but sincere and encouraging. She’s talking directly to you.
Second, the book follows a natural progression. It starts by providing a ‘roadmap’ to achieving results using the “everything is figureoutable” approach. Next, you’re prompted to proactively challenge your beliefs and understand that your excuses are exactly that. While numerous typical excuses are discussed, there is a whole chapter on fear, which of course is near and dear to my heart (anything to tame fear is a good thing). It then walks through defining your dream and taking the steps to make your dream become your reality, including strategies for taking the first steps, overcoming barriers, and keeping momentum.
Not only is the book a practical guide, but the author also has added actionable exercises throughout the book to help spur you to action. She has also provided some inspiring stories from others who have used the techniques to push through their own challenges.
I first read Everything Is Figureoutable by borrowing the Kindle edition from the library. Honestly, the title is what caught my attention; I’d never heard of the book before. I devoured the book, adding highlights and notes (I love the Kindle app!). Since I loved the book and plan to reference and re-read it, I bought the Kindle version for myself. Of course the added bonus is that all my notes and highlights from the borrowed version synchronized with the copy I purchased.
It was interesting to see references to other books I have recently read or have on my short list to read soon. For example, the author cites The War of Art by Steven Pressfield (I had recently purchased that book; it’s in my reading queue) and Mindset by Carol Dweck (which I borrowed and read several weeks ago, and then purchased).
In conclusion, I recommend Everything Is Figureoutable.
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.]
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.]
