Go backward to go forward
When you’re working on something that’s too hard, it doesn’t feel good. There’s nothing to mark your progress — it all just feels like a slog.
You read a paragraph four times but can’t hold onto anything.
The ball not only misses the goal, it keeps going into the scary neighbor’s yard.
It’s supposed to be Chopin, but it just sounds like your frustration made audible.
Though there are certainly times when dogged determination can carry the day, it’s also true that discouragement leads to a lot of quitting, even though major motion pictures are not made to tell those stories.
Trying harder doesn’t always yield results.
When things aren’t going well, stop.
Find the tiniest step forward. An action that can be found in your Indigo Ring, juuuuust a touch beyond the things you know by heart. Do that — and see what you can accomplish in the next ten minutes that gets you closer to your ultimate goal.
If you can’t look back at the end of the ten minutes and see your progress as clearly as boot tracks in knee-deep snow, find something even tinier and easier, and proceed more slowly.
Even though we’re trying to make things as easy as possible, there are two obstacles that will still make things difficult.
The first is that it is actually quite challenging to figure out how to break things down into smaller pieces. It takes practice and may require the expertise of a teacher.
The second is that a lot of people hate the sense of “going backward” or “doing review.” Often, we would rather continue in our miserable illusion of forward progress than try a different approach. That’s like attempting to drive a car that’s overheating instead of shutting off the engine, letting it cool down, and having the ailing vehicle towed to the mechanic for repairs. Sure, it takes time to fix the problem — but it’s time well spent.
For some people, overcoming these obstacles triggers a massive shift in the way they see themselves and what they are able to accomplish, leading to huge leaps forward. Not bad for “going backward.”