Success seldom arrives suddenly. It usually comes after months, if not years, of study and practice as a beginner moves from being useless, to poor, to mediocre, to average, to above average, to competent, to good and finally to expert status. The key is to accept the fact that success is a process and that being average comes before being an expert. Years ago, I landed flat on my backside after attempting a kick in Karate. What made it really embarrassing was that I had let out a great yell before kicking! The whole class laughed but the instructor told them off as I had put maximum effort into the kick. It took me a while before my balance improved. Experts must be content to be poor or average before they can do well. Most physical skills mean doing badly first before one does well. The skier falls down many times before the skill is learned. He has to be prepared to look mediocre and even silly before he starts to look awesome. The car driver grates the gears and has several near misses before the L plates are removed. The violinist is very unpopular for a long time! The artist produces rubbish before the gold emerges. I spent a long time on the bagpipes before I could produce a reasonable sound let alone maintain it for any length of time! Writers block usually occurs not because the writer cant write, but because the writer thinks he cant write well. The writer thinks he doesnt have the talent or inspiration to write something thats good enough to publish The negative voice we all have in us tells us we cant write. The cure for writers block is to go ahead and write badly. Many good books began with poor first drafts. Just start badly and get something down on paper or on your computer. You can go on improving ebooks forever! By the mere act of writing or typing you have broken the choke hold of the negative voice that keeps telling you that you cant write. Now you are writing and, once youre in action, its possible to improve the quality. Steve Chandler, a writer, described how he managed to run regularly. A voice inside him would tell him not to run on days when he did not think he would run well. His cure for that was to decide to run badly: I dont feel like running now, so Im going to go out and run slowly and in such lazy, bad form that it does me no good, but at least I will have run. Once he started, something always happened to alter his feelings about the run. And by the end of the run, he noticed that it had "somehow become thoroughly enjoyable." Most people hate to begin their tax returns. They should just start badly and gradually the forms will be filled. Even if they have been filled in badly they will avoid the penalties for a late return! In 1996 Donny Osmond suffered from anxiety about performing in public. On one occasion he could not get on stage until someone told him to just go and do an average performance and not worry about how good he was. This advice got him on stage. I listened a few weeks ago to a conference phone call by Mike Litman, the inspirational radio show host from the USA. His advice is often pure gold. Mike teaches that the biggest secret of success is as follows: You dont have to get it right; you just have to get it going. Do things badly and, at least, they will get done. Wait till you can do things perfectly and you will never do them unless you were born a genius who didnt have to learn through his mistakes. Even a squirrel falls out of trees. I have seen it happen in our local woods! Accepting that you may just be average or even mediocre for a time can give you liberation from the paralysis of perfectionist thinking and set you free to make the most of your abilities on this planet. Take action daily to move from being average to being competent and finally to being an expert who can experience the joy and the success of being skilful. |
