Why ugly and slow is okay!
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 out how to get my project going. She’s a regular wizard at it! And by comparison I’m slow and my projects are, if not ugly, then at least much less than perfect. I’ve 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 thousands of books and videos on anything we want to get proficient at.
It’s our attitude, comparing 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’s else’s finished and polished results. We can pat ourselves on our backs for starting, for learning, for getting slowly better and slowly faster! (if fast is our goal)
But I do know that I can knit. It just might not be pretty yet and it may still take me more time than I had hoped. I may be awkward. I may be slow and even have to “frog” or “tink” my project. (frog=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?
3 Comments
You move forward without cognitive dissonance, and so take in the info that you need. For me, knitting is fine, but take this idea to the harp and it’s a different story. My teacher pointed out my cognitive dissonance to moving forward into skills and concepts that seemed way beyond me. I’m still working on that one. ‘Self talk’ hasn’t yet gotten me through it.
I am trying to learn to play bridge. I thought it would be good exercise for an old brain. I will keep trying but at this point I don’t know if I will ever be good at it.
Running is an activity that I’m not good at and probably don’t have the natural talent, but for some reason that I don’t even know myself, I like to do 5k races. I like to feel that sense of accomplishment when I finish a race. I may stop but I don’t quit! Also, there are no style points! LOL BTW, I like your site! I found it after looking for Naval’s 5-chimp theory. Have a nice day!