Not perfect?

My sister is a lot better at knitting than I am. It is painfully obvious when she tackles a complex pattern, makes changes in it, and then finishes it before I’ve figured how to get my project going. She’s a regular whiz at it!

And by comparison I’m slow and my projects are much less than perfect. I’ve often had a challenging time with it…and sometimes a flood of negative thoughts!

Have you ever felt that way about a new project? It’s not a lack of information that makes it hard for us to lose weight or get good at a new activity. There are hundreds of books and videos on anything we want to get proficient at. It’s our attitude, when we compare our current expertise to others’ well practiced expertise. It’s when we want instant competence.

We don’t need to compare our current skill level to someone else’s finished and polished results. We can choose to pat ourselves on our backs for starting, for learning, for getting slowly better.

After all, I do know that I can knit, it just might not be as pretty as I wanted yet and it may still take more time than I had hoped. I may be awkward. I may be slow and even have to “frog” or “tink” my project. (frog=rip it/take it all out, tink=unknit a section of it.)

And when I persist, I feel awesome! Not because I did it perfectly, but just because I did it.

So…does this remind you of any of your own experiences, thoughts, or feelings about yourself? What did you do? What can you tell yourself if you are not yet perfect at it?

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