RingoI have a problem. I’m not alone in this problem. Quite a few people I’ve met and taught have it bad like me. I’d be willing to be most humans have it to one degree or another. That problem is that I’m naturally talented at a wide variety of things. I know I know, that’s arrogant as fuck and one of those “You don’t know how hard it is to be beautiful statements” but bear with me.
See, being naturally talented at something means you pick up alot of the beginning skills fast. It means as things get more advanced and you begin to struggle a bit, you can still see progress and understand how failures build towards success. It means that even at that point you can work through problems with relative ease. It means that you never really have to work under the implicit assumption that things will get better, because you can explicitly see those results. It means you don’t have to rely entirely on drive, because you can get by without much work and if you do put in hard work, you get immediate rewards. It means getting good is easy.
How is this it problem? Because when I do hit a wall it means I’m not prepared. When I try something new and I’m proficient within seconds I have no expectation that could change. When I come to adversity, I naturally give up. I’m hardly unique in this regard. In fact I think it’s far more common to act like this than to not. Most of us put work into bettering ourselves at things we have natural talents at. We don’t try the things we suck, because they are hard and uncomfortable. Because they challenge our self worth. Because why would we when we can get an easy dopamine rush from doing something we find easy?
The real problem though is that most of the time, it’s not that hard. Most of the time we hit failure and something inside us starts telling us that nope, this isn’t for you. You’re not getting this. You won’t learn it. You CAN’T learn it.
That’s bull cocks. There are some things you can’t do. Fly without mechanical assistance. Catch bullets. Shoot lasers from your eyes. Within the realm of the human possible there will still be things that you probably can’t do. For example as a 30 year old man without a sprinting background I will never beat Usain Bolt’s record for 100m dash. If you are wheelchair bound, you aren’t gonna dunk a basketball. 99% of things other people can do though? You can. I can. We can.
Everyone has limits. Not everyone can do everything as we all have different thresholds. But most of the time, when you start hearing that voice. When you start saying I can’t do this. When you start thinking this is an impossible task and you should spend your time doing that other thing. What’s really happening is you want to replace frustration with that thing that makes you feel good. The thing that makes you feel successful. Honestly? I’m doing it right now, writing this blog instead of working on a presentation for work.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve said, “I cant do this” or “I’ll never learn this.” Only to find out that it was exceedingly possible if I stopped thinking like that. Sometimes it’s years later. Sometimes It’s mere minutes. Everytime though I feel embarrassed that I let myself believe that. Everytime I regret the lost experience I had because I let myself believe. Because I quit. Because I willingly gave up instead of gritting my teeth and trying.
I never realized how common this was, until I started teaching. I never realized how self sabotaging I had been till I saw others do it and thought back to my own moments of failure that made me throw up my hands in defeat, when I still had so much fight left in me. I never realized how easy it was to overcome till I watched other people struggle through. Till I saw stronger people hit more walls and bust through them with perseverance. I didn’t understand how just how important not listening to that voice was.
Overcoming struggle is a skill. Fortitude is something some people have more naturally than others, but it is also 100% a thing you can build. And honestly it’s probably the most important skill you can develop, because it’s the one that lets you acquire any other. It lets overcome 99% of obstacles. I don’t know the best way to build this skill. I’m fucking awful at it to be frank. I just know that when the voice tells you “you can’t” you need to realize it’s wrong. How you do that is up to you, whether that’s taking a breath, relaxing for a bit before coming back later, or yelling “Fuck you imaginary vioce in my head” and doing it anyway, harder, or simply reminding yourself that many others have walked down this path before and that most likely means you can too.