Making space for growth

Every so often, a larger pot is necessary. (Image by Pexels)

A popular tactic of guitar teachers is to play along with their students. It’s easy and natural — two guitars sound good together.

The problem comes if the teacher never lets the student play by themselves, whether in a performance situation or a lesson. The student will always sound good — in fact, they’ll sound better than they would on their own — and that’s the problem. They don’t have to work that hard to be steady and play with a strong tone. They will find themselves without much experience, and therefore confidence, when they try to play on their own.

It can be uncomfortable to allow a learner to struggle. It’s hard to wait for a beat or two for them to come up with an answer to a question instead of filling the space and answering for them, to recognize opportunities for them make their own age-appropriate decisions, and to stand by as they draw their block letters crookedly on the poster for their project. If we know more than they do, we can help them. Shouldn’t we?

Actually no. If our goal is to help someone become a fully actualized, autonomous being, we should look for opportunities not to help them by doing things for them or telling them what to do, but by sending the message that we are here if they need us and we believe in their ability. And the more we give them opportunities to do for themselves instead of doing for them, their ability will expand.

This will likely lead to imperfect performances, projects, and outfits; it may even contribute to poor grades, missed opportunities, tears and frustration. However, this isn’t necessarily a problem. Human beings need the tools to overcome challenges and learn from them; we get those tools from experience, especially when we’re guided by someone who will let us make mistakes and try stuff. Someone who will still love us if we’re not perfect.

Life is an adventure. We all need room to experiment, try things, mess up, and try again. We will never have it all figured out, and that’s the fun of it. We seek novelty and challenge in order to grow. If our reach exceeds our grasp, we do risk failure — but this is also how we expand our skills and knowledge over time. If we have mentors who are there to cheer us on even when — especially when — we fail, we will learn that failure is normal, messing up isn’t scary, and we will have the wherewithal to keep at it. Our accomplishments, though they may come a little slower, will be our own.