Without doing it badly, you can’t do it better.
I recently taught my younger nephew cycling.
If you have ever taught anyone cycling, you will see the entire range of human emotions play out beginning from frustration to determination to hope and finally, unbridled joy.
At first, my nephew struggled to balance.
He would then ride straight towards one of the numerous cars parked on the road, giving me endless heart attacks.
Once he got a hang of his balance, he struggled to apply the brakes correctly. In his defense, the cycle was a little too big for him which made getting down easily a little difficult.
After numerous tries, he was able to apply the brakes and get down without falling off.
Whenever you learn or try your hand at something new, you make countless mistakes. The more you do it, the quicker you soften the rough spots and get better at it.
Without doing it badly, you can’t do it better.
People confuse making mistakes with learning to do something the wrong way.
Both of them are poles apart.
Learning to do something the wrong way occurs when we are not taught something correctly in the first place or when we take short cuts.
Mistakes can be overcome. But it takes a lot of effort to learn to do something the right way after learning it the wrong way.
A few weeks back, my elder nephew, who is entering his teens, surprised me when he told me he was interested in meditation. When I asked him why he didn’t practice it, he proceeded to tell me that the teacher who taught him meditation at school constantly gave them instructions and spoiled the experience for him.
Another ex-colleague told me how a slew of bad bosses had taught them the wrong way to function and tried to shake their confidence in their abilities.
In the first case, I proceeded to download the Headspace app and do a few sessions of guided meditation with my nephew which he greatly enjoyed.
In the second case, my ex-colleague decided they had enough of working with crappy bosses and set out on their own. They are doing very well for themselves, negating all the efforts of people who constantly undermined and belittled them.
Screw-ups and mistakes are a part and parcel of life. Learn from them and you can use them to your advantage. If you’re trying something new or trying to get better, these are inevitable.
But be wary of learning things the wrong way or being thrown off track by people trying to teach you the wrong way of doing things and telling you things about yourself that aren’t true.
There is no greater mistake in learning something the wrong way or believing in something that isn’t true.
