Still growing, still learning

I’m not a Vegas performer running through my greatest hits. I’m still trying to discover new ones to add to my repertoire. (Image by Michelle Maria)

“I don’t really feel like I have much left to say.”

That’s what I said to myself in an audio journal about six weeks into my daily blogging experiment.

It might have actually been true at the time. I hadn’t yet trained my brain to come up with new ideas every day, so I was still documenting ideas I’d already thought of. I was working through a backlog of stuff I wanted to talk about, and I was, indeed, coming to the end of it.

In the time since, I’ve continued, you know, living my life. That means there’s an endless flow of new inputs and ideas and opportunities, should I wish to see them. I’m never going to run out of things to share if I choose to prioritize that.

As a teacher and coach, my commitment is to perpetual learning and growth myself. Simply to be good at things isn’t “walking the talk” — I have to be actively working on gaining new skills and knowledge, working to master things I’m not good at yet.

I had an important lesson in this regard recently when I was interviewed for a podcast. Some of the conversation went really well, and some of it called me into uncharted territory where I faced the obstacle of expressing ideas that are newer to me.

The entire experience was intense and overwhelming. Some of it was really fun, but I left the conversation feeling at once like I had said too much and as though I left important things unsaid. During parts of the interview, I felt as though I wasn’t able to get past the equipment and tech and my own anxiety in order to connect with the interviewer on a normal, personal level.

After the call, as I reflected on my performance, I gave myself a reality check. I’ve done only a handful of podcast interviews. Why on earth would I expect to be good at it? It’s perfectly reasonable that my very best effort was not as polished as I might like. Too bad! If I want to get better, I have to keep doing the work.

As important as this specific interview was to me, it was helpful to think of it as simply a link in the chain. It wasn’t the first, and it won’t be the last. Hopefully, I will look back on it someday and see how far I’ve come. In the meantime, it demonstrates that I’m not just over here telling other people to do uncomfortable things. It shows that I’m challenging myself in the same way.

It’s easy to scoff at an eight-year-old who gets angry when she can’t make her guitar sound good on the first try. What did you expect, kid? But we all carry with us a self-concept that can be easily bruised when we there’s a mismatch between our expectations and our performance. If we can have a sense of humor about it and compassion for ourselves, that gap is less painful.

I am still growing and still learning. I can let myself be where I am, whether that is a beginner or a seasoned professional. It gives me a sense of hope when I fail and a sense of perspective when I succeed. I’ll never run out of new challenges and new ideas.