8mo ago

If at first you don't succeed...

34 comments

don't forget the second part where i quit something i'm good at because i don't immediately see exponential growth which means my current abilities are a mere fluke

I like the old line, "If at first you don't succeed, try again, and again...Then give up. There's no point in making a fool of yourself."
- I'm sure this was used in a beer advert in the UK in the 90s or early 00s
  
  I heard it from 1920s movie star W. C. Fields.

I don't mean this in a bad or critical way: I genuinely do not understand this thought. As humans we are born shit at EVERYTHING. Literally. We can't even fucking walk.
In the developed world we spend the first 16-18yrs learning. And then some of us spend some more time learning.
I learned a new sport when I joined uni. Then I learned to programme. Then I learned a martial art.
I have spent my entire life being shit at things. Because I've also spent my entire life learning.
If you refuse to be shit at something, then you also refuse to learn, and to me that makes no sense - I think I'll only stop learning when I die.
This is just my unfiltered thoughts - I am not trying to be critical, I am just trying to explain how I cannot comprehend this kind of thinking because it is the literal antithesis of me.
- I'm not saying this to brag, because I'm absolutely fucked like the person in the picture says, but "learning" in school was piss easy, pretty much only required being there. For me there really wasn't a "being shit" period, at least that was noticeable to me. Then I got to college and I don't know if it was the change in how classes were structured and scheduled, or that natural aptitude had taken me as far as it could, or both, but I didn't know how to cope with the effort it required, because I never had to develop that skill prior to that. Frankly, I still haven't. So yeah, I totally get this post.
  
  Same here for me. Learning in school never took any effort at all. I was always good enough with little practice that I didn't push myself to do more.
  College is the great equalizer that shows people they're not as gifted as they thought.
  
  I found school really difficult as an adolescent. I struggled at everything and nothing made sense. But it did prepare me for the working world.
  Some people are just good at learning, at school. Like I would show up to every class, every lab, take notes paraphrased by hand, rewrite them out again on my own, ask questions after class, make flash cards... Then I have this distinct memory of drilling a classmate who had missed a bunch of classes and were in a bad way, and... They got a much better score than me. Some people make it look so easy... I wish.
  Anyway, that's all to say not everyone has your gifts. I'm also a programmer which is thankfully lucrative, so it was worth it. But it's never been easy for me, or I imagine many other people.
- Tenacity is a crucial skill to develop, and not everybody figures that out.
  Children are great at it, because they're constantly learning to do everything and are expected to be beginners, but at a certain point for many adults, failing at something new challenges their self-image/self-worth, so they just find reasons to avoid developing skills altogether.
  Learning how to fail is a necessary step on the way to mastering anything.
  
  Children are often shit at it, and have full on screaming meltdowns several times in a few minutes when something doesn't go immediately their way
  Otoh little bastards don't have a choice so they gotta suck it up
- In the wise words of Jake the Dog: "suckin' at something is the first step to bein' sorta good at something"

If at first you don't succeed redefine success
- This what Trump is doing, right?
  
  It's how you win bigly.

My 10 year old son is like that. It's been a chore teaching him otherwise and explaining that some skills could take years.
- It’s tricky for sure. For my kids, I try to take any and all wins (no matter the size) and emphasize how it took hard work and practice for them to succeed. I also remind them that even in failure they can learn something for next time. Hopefully it’ll set the right attitude for them. Good luck!
  
  Something helpful someone said to me is that if someone says something like "I can't do it", simply say "yet" and it immediately changes their point of view.
  
  Thanks for that. He seems to get frustrated around not being able to just solve all of his math problems right away. Like when I point out some mistakes he has in his homework (after he asks me to) he gets frustrated with that. Every time he does, I explain that it's ok to make mistakes and it's good to learn from them. He's been getting better.

I've been consistently trying to write and draw for 15+ years, with weekly practices, and I haven't seen any appreciable improvement. My handwriting is still erratic and illegible, and I can't carry a story thread over a page or two without stumbling and falling hard. Meanwhile, both my grandfather and mother are accomplished artists. Guess it skipped a generation...
- Do you enjoy doing it? If so, who cares if you're good. If not, why are you doing something you don't enjoy?
  
  I don't enjoy doing it, but I do it with the goal of showing myself I CAN do it and to gain joy/accomplishment for that, and also because these are some specific weak points of mine I've been trying to polish and repair for ages. Also, I'm always very impressed with people whose handwriting looks like it was printed because it's so precise and consistent. Mine has always looked like I was a doctor (I wish), so I just wanted to improve in that regard.
- i once visited a friend who was in the middle of writing a screenplay and he had an entire 20 ft wall covered in colored post-it notes for various characters and story arcs. maybe that would help you.
  maybe thats a good use case for spatial applications.
- As the other person mentioned, maybe you should reconsider the way you organise your writing.
  If you cannot hold down plotlines while you're just writing off the top of your head, you could try doing more planning and mapping out your plot.
  If you don't mind the mess, and prefer physical/tactile notes, stuff like the post its the other user mentioned, or something like a cork board could probably be good.
  If you prefer to be super organised and don't mind digital notes, there's a lot of free to use organisation/notes apps, I really like Obsidian.

... Are you me?

My way of quitting that was Dark Souls 3 (even though I apparently suck at it way more than I should) - Can't beat that part? Get your arse back over there and stop complaining. You WILL succeed.
- The soulsborne games are a legitimately effective way to build tenacity.

Noob

I like to preach about practice. It's corny sounding, but practice is everything. You gotta focus on the thing rather than how you feel about your progress with the thing.

I tend to be that way in the wood shop. I'll try a technique, and if it doesn't produce usable results I ditch it almost immediately and try something very different. LIke I have completely given up on cutting tenons on the table saw, that's my router table's job.

Why learn to program computers or make art over years of training when half way through AI can come and take your job prospects and make it so all that time was waisted? Something that you can learn quick you can do for a while before it becomes obsolete.

34 comments