Throughout my life, I did well in school but not in sports. Good grades are always rewarded, so I did well in that lane. A lot of things came easy or were interesting, so I stayed with those. If it took a lot of practice to be any good, such as learning to play a musical instrument, I didn’t have the motivation. I wanted to be great on the first try.
While I experienced the process in elementary school, high school, and college, what I didn’t learn is that learning is a process. In real life, we try stuff. Whether it’s cooking or basketball or art. If it works the first time, it’s generally an accident. We’re lucky if we can repeat the same outcome the second time. It takes a while to figure out what procedures lead to which outcomes.
Added to that, somehow I learned it was wrong to be wrong. It was important to know the answers, the right answers. When I didn’t, embarrassment, shame, defensiveness ensued. If you can’t win at a game, don’t compete. But you can’t get better if you don’t try stuff. It’s not a failure, it’s learning what doesn’t work.
Ironically, I had majored in both computer science and psychology, so I should have recognized this pattern. In the old computer programming models it was “Test-Operate-Test-Exit.” In psychology, it is hypothesize, collect data, analyze, generate the next hypothesis. In design models it is prototype, test, refine, iterate.
Now, I feel like I have permission to try things out. They don’t have to be perfect right off the bat. They might never be perfect, but I give myself permission to experiment, “fail,” try something new. I might even accidentally discover something amazing that I wasn’t looking for.
#becomingwhoyouare #everydaycreative
Puzzle Pieces Coaching 