So tonight I broke my family's kitchen water faucet. My dad typically does the maintenance around the house, but this time I took it into my own hands and installed a new faucet myself. This was honestly my first time doing anything related to plumbing, but I jumped in head first with my dad's blessings, and now we have a shiny new faucet that works brilliantly without leaks or strangely colored water.
I love to brag about my first-time accomplishments, and absolutely love to gather praise for things that I excel at. But this is beside the point, I guess. Let's jump a little deeper into why I told this little story.
I lack confidence issues. In no way do I ever feel inferior, nor do I back down from a challenge. I'm so confident in damn near everything about myself, aside from just this one thing -- my ability to succeed on the first try.
Rather than turning this blog post into a whiny-fest, I'd like to challenge my readers to take my new-found insight, and try to relate and maybe, possibly allow it to enrich their own lives.
My level of confidence when learning new things is incredible. If you put something in front of me, I *will* learn it, do it, try it, whatever. But please, please, PLEASE don't watch my first try, and don't offer any assistance. In fact, don't watch any of my tries.
There is a roadblock in my brain that sometimes destroys my motivation to continue learning. It's so easy to learn. All you need to do is understand circumstances surrounding whatever you're learning, understand what's working and what's being worked on, understand how to relate it to yourself in order to better retain it... the process goes on, and my brain tends to enjoy iterating through it.
But I live in this state of fear that someone will interrupt me; that someone will keep my brain from accomplishing its goal; that someone will not understand that to learn something, sometimes doing it wrong the first time is the best way to get started.
When I was in college, I worked as a student custodian. Most of the full-time custodians were pretty horrible employees, and so I was tasks with things that, typically, student custodians don't do. One of those things was resurfacing the floors in various rooms around campus. I was told that I had to use a certain machine to strip up the existing surface, to make room for new floor wax. The trouble was that I had never even touched a machine like it, and that I had no idea what to expect.
In this situation, I typically approach it cautiously, much like a chimpanzee with a new puzzle. I will poke and prod until something happens and analyze that something, and then do it all again until I feel like I'm ready to solve the puzzle. Unfortunately, the aforementioned road block exists.
As my "supervisor" stood back, after giving me a short list of instructions, I froze. I understood the instructions perfectly, but I didn't want to carry them out without first feeling I was ready to carry them out. Unfortunately, my brain works under the assumption that with someone watching, if I don't do it right on the first try, it's the end of the world. So I just kind of stood there and examined the machine with my eyes until my "supervisor" grabbed it and demonstrated. Talk about embarrassing.
Around that same time, I obtained my first car. My baby, "Jillian;" a 1991 Subaru Legacy Sport Sedan. At this time, she sported a factory turbo-charged horizontally-opposed 4 cylinder SOHC engine. The unique part was the 5-speed manual transmission, which the car wasn't commonly equipped with from the factory.
I had never driven a manual transmission. But this wasn't a problem. I knew I could learn to drive it, and I did. But this one I did alone. I spent a lot of time watching videos (yeah) and reading about important things to consider while learning to drive a stick shift. At the end of it all, I felt like I was ready to try and start the car. I got inside, found the clutch pedal, and depressed it before turning the key. I'm embarrassed to admit that I almost immediately dropped the clutch pedal while in 5th gear (for parking), and the engine stalled.
No problem. Let's try that again and get it right.
I went through this process for the entirety of the learning experience, unbeknownst to my roommate at the time. I did actually draw on him to learn some things, and I even tried to learn with him around. Not much learning was had.
But I got it. Eventually. On my own, for the most part. And the most satisfying moment came when I jumped into another car with a manual transmission, alongside another person, and was complimented on my ability to drive it.
I can accomplish just about anything without someone breathing over my shoulder. But with someone breathing over my shoulder, I'm the most useless person in the entire world.
Tonight I installed my first faucet. And while my dad was there handing me tools, he could not see what I was doing to accomplish it, nor was he providing a constant flow of advice. My brain was allowed to do what it does best, and learn.
Not only is it what my brain does best, but it's what I enjoy the most. Whether it's a new skill or a new person, I love to learn it, and only one thing can stop me from doing it. I realized this when I started thinking about what I would write here, and now I can learn how to combat it.
Thanks for reading.
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