You know, I do get the whole "I'm trying, and it's just not working" frustration. But I wasn't kidding when I said on Google+ that it can be very valuable to recognize that tendency in yourself and learn to deal with it.
It's okay not to be wonderful at something - it's even okay to be eternally bad at it. And there's an incredibly valuable life skill in diving in, being bad at something, and getting through the bad feelings and frustrations and residual self-criticism, and learning that you can break its power on you.
It's hard to explain this, but it's like, there's two glorious endings to this: you deciding that you don't like cake decorating that much (or, at least, not enough to keep practicing long enough to get better), or that you do, and continue to practice. And either of those decisions is perfectly wonderful and glorious if it comes from you learning what you enjoy, without pains and anxieties and frustrations driving you away from getting comfortable with it.
(Or - maybe I'm being over-preachy because I'm fatigued and feeling like crap and giving myself constant pep talks, and letting them leak out to others.)
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2014-03-13 02:14 am (UTC)It's okay not to be wonderful at something - it's even okay to be eternally bad at it. And there's an incredibly valuable life skill in diving in, being bad at something, and getting through the bad feelings and frustrations and residual self-criticism, and learning that you can break its power on you.
It's hard to explain this, but it's like, there's two glorious endings to this: you deciding that you don't like cake decorating that much (or, at least, not enough to keep practicing long enough to get better), or that you do, and continue to practice. And either of those decisions is perfectly wonderful and glorious if it comes from you learning what you enjoy, without pains and anxieties and frustrations driving you away from getting comfortable with it.
(Or - maybe I'm being over-preachy because I'm fatigued and feeling like crap and giving myself constant pep talks, and letting them leak out to others.)