It takes what it takes
She may be sitting there awhile. (Image by Sabine)
An acquaintance of mine just took up tap dancing after a lifetime of wanting to try it.
Con: He’s middle-aged and too shy to try a class.
Pro: It’s 2023. You can get tap shoes delivered to your door, and there is a wealth of instructional materials, many of them free, to help you get started and get going.
He’s seeing progress. Slow progress, but progress. “I’m a slow learner, and I just have to accept that.”
And that’s what makes all the difference. I’ve seen so many people quit before they’ve barely scratched the surface because they could not tolerate the indignity of not being good at something right away.
If, instead, they can take the approach of my tap-dancing friend and get on board with the idea that forward motion will be slow at first, they might just stick with the new skill long enough to see some results.
The secret is in the fact that learning is not linear. It compounds. Every time you sleep, you continue learning, and the benefit will show up the next time you practice once you get warmed up. If you are consistent, the cumulative results of all of your practice will be rewarded with leaps forward in skill and understanding.
There is no way around the uncertainty at the beginning. There is no promise that it will be worth it. All you can do is give it a shot and see. And that process is much easier and more fun if you are willing to be a beginner instead of thinking that you should be able to get it faster or be farther along by now.
In practice, this is very simple: Just don’t quit. Even if the critical voice in your head is loud, don’t quit.
My two-year-old nephew has been learning to sing “Hickory Dickory Dock.” He sings it over and over, acting out the lyrics, with various household objects substituting for the clock and various animals taking their turns running up.
This song is exactly within his Zone of Proximal Development, his “Goldilocks zone” of learning — it’s neither too easy nor too hard. The evidence is his complete engagement and hunger for repetition.
There is no voice inside his head telling him he should be better by now. There is no sense that he should switch to a different song. There is only the fun, satisfying experience of singing it, again and again, with a myriad variations.
To the naked ear, he’s not improving very much. He still doesn’t have all of the words down. He isn’t singing all of the notes in tune. But such judgments are truly irrelevant to the learning experience — and what’s more, they’re deeply unhelpful.
My nephew understands what so many of us once understood and have since lost: It takes what it takes. There is no “should” when it comes to learning. There is no ideal number of repetitions or minutes logged that separates the worthy from the hopeless, the good from the bad. There is only the commitment to continue on the journey, which is pretty enjoyable if you’re not constantly beating yourself up.
Whatever you want to learn, you will be a novice. I wonder if you could see yourself with the same care and generosity that you might see a child — or the child version of you — undertaking that challenge.
I wonder if you could give yourself the words of encouragement that you would give to that child. The patience and understanding as mistakes and missteps inevitably happen. And the warm praise as each milestone is achieved, no matter how long it is in coming. We all deserve that.
