Am I doing this right?

You don’t always want to learn the hard way whether your work will hold up.

When I was running operations at my music school, I would often get a panicked calls from one of the many teachers.

“Did you change the key?” they would ask. “I can’t get my key to work. I’ve been trying for like ten minutes — I’ve tried every key I have.”

After I reassured them that I hadn’t changed the locks without telling them, they would usually make their key work within a minute. The seemingly impenetrable mechanism would now suddenly give way. The only thing that had changed was that now they knew that they had the right key. That gave them the fortitude necessary to succeed in unlocking the door.

The metaphorical resonance of this idea has stuck with me. So often, when we aren’t sure whether we’re doing something correctly, we lose faith in whether it’s even worth doing. All it takes is a nudge to let us know we’re on the right track to help us continue on it. 

Recently, I was experimenting with stranded colorwork in my knitting, which can create the beautiful multicolored designs you see in Fair Isle sweaters and hats. I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I decided to give it a try. I awkwardly held one color of yarn in my left hand and the other in my right, trying to make sense of the pattern in front of me. The fabric I created was loose, with inconsistent tension and weird loops on the back side.

Dissatisfied, I consulted my knitting oracle, YouTube, to get more information. And guess what? It turned out I was doing it more or less correctly. I learned that if I knit more than 5 stitches in a single color, I had to “trap” the other color somewhere along it. Other than this adjustment, my basic approach was sound.

Surprised but soothed, I returned to my swatch, ripped everything out, and tried again. This time, I managed the tension and the “floats” (the weird loops on the back) with more confidence and created a decent-looking piece. The only thing that had actually changed was that I knew that I was doing it right, instead of doing it right without being certain.

While it’s great when we can be independent and not need the approval of a teacher or coach to move forward, a little well-timed encouragement can go a long way. We don’t always need a lot of coaching to be successful. We might not even need words. A nod or a thumbs up can make a huge difference.

As we gain skill and experience in our pursuit, we are increasingly able to coach ourselves through challenges. We have the wherewithal to know that we’re on the right track even when it doesn’t seem like it, and that helps us to push through.

To take it a step further, there are also times when, through sheer persistence, you can make something work even when it’s not officially “the right way.” This is often how it goes for artists, entrepreneurs, and innovators. Once they’ve done it, they make it possible for others to follow. They’ve created a new “right way.”

What roads do you go down without being sure of where they’ll lead? What would you love to accomplish, if only you could guarantee that you would be successful? How might it help you to believe that you already have the key?