You never realise just how pathetically unskilled you are at something until you get started. Sure, there are times when your innate abilities and previously attained skills will carry you through, but most of the time when you are truly broadening your horizons, you’ll find yourself in the land of uselessness. At the very least, this seems to be true in my case. But, does that mean you should stop? Does that mean you can’t learn?
One of the greatest challenges of being human, I think, is the fact that we are imperfect beings with perfect (or arguably naive) imaginations. No one ever imagines themselves being useless, least of all when they are mentally, emotionally, physically and financially invested in achieving a righteous goal.
Sure, people hold back at times because they feel they won’t be any good. However, when we decided to go for something, and invest everything that we have and everything that we are into a goal, we rarely ever imagine ourselves being shockingly terrible at it. If we did, we just wouldn’t do it.
I had one of those ‘shockers’ not too long ago during one of my flying lessons. Sitting on the left-hand seat, in the cockpit of the Piper Pa28, my instructor asked if I was ready to make the initial radio call. I had never made a radio call to an Air Traffic Service Unit before, but I had practised over and over, before the lesson, just in case. Needless to say, when the time came to deliver the good, I completely butchered it! (See for yourself: My RT Call Fail)
I was slow. I didn’t give all the necessary information. My read back was incorrect. I even used the wrong callsign at the end; a great way to crown an amateur radio call. It’s one thing to master it on your own. Delivering the goods in the moment, under pressure, with lots of other things on your mind at the same time, that’s something else. That, I certainly didn’t do.
You might say I am being harsh with myself. You’re right! Of course it was amateur attempt. What else did I expect? What were the chances that it would be professional level, at my first attempt? It isn’t failure that is a surprise, it’s success that should be baffling.
“You will never improve at something you haven’t started.”
Future Pilot Niner One
It is far easier to see the bigger picture when you are looking into the frame, as opposed to standing in it. When we are the ones in the hot seat, it is much harder to be charitable to ourselves, and yet it is necessary. It is the challenge of being an imperfect being, with a perfect, or arguably naive, imagination.
It is easy to stay within the limits of your comfort zone. There, you are a great success with consistent victories. Beyond that, everything looks foggy, uncertain and chaotic. However, despite others being impressed with you, you might find yourself haunted by the idea that you can do, achieve and be more.
To realise the potential buried within you, you must go beyond your current comfort zone – carefully, methodically but certainly. Beware! The more that you venture beyond the bounds of your current capabilities, the more you expose yourself to the possibility of failure and the discovery of your current inadequacies, in light of your goal.
As much as you might imagine yourself being perfect in your process of growth – not making the dumbest mistakes along the way, always feeling motivated and ‘up for the task’, taking 2 steps forward and no steps back and people always having your back and so on – the real world doesn’t conform to your imagination.
Besides, there is something far more real and more important than trying to live up to the perfect and perfectly illusive conjurings of the imagination, it’s called ‘progress’. There is something more satisfying, it’s called ‘effort’.
I am encouraged by the words CT Fletcher who says that there is victory in knowing that you did all you could do. I am encouraged by the words of Jordan B Peterson when he says, “Just because you have faults doesn’t mean you have to stop. Just because you have faults doesn’t mean you can’t learn.”
Remember that when you venture, even tentatively, beyond your comfort zone in an attempt to become something more than what you currently are. Your mistakes reveal where you are now, allowing you to more accurately plot your path towards what you could be.
The path to success is paved with many failures – even the kinds of failures that we never imagined. Every failure is an opportunity to learn. Every lesson learned unlocks further progress. Every bit of progress means we are truly closer to our goal, when compared to where we started.
Future Pilot Niner One 