Being Terrible at Something. Doing it Anyway.

My last post let you know that I’m trying out some new things. In the weeks since sharing that post, I have persisted in most of the things I started. That wasn’t anything I was shooting for. I gave myself permission to let anything go. Toughing it out to prove I have persistence wasn’t my objective. Persistence is not something new to me or something I need to work on.

I wanted to share a few learnings.

First, rock climbing. I love rock climbing. So far I’m just messing around at the Boulder Rock Club, where a new friend does most of his indoor stuff. I love the place, and it has plenty of routes that are perfectly suited to someone who can find her way up a wall (on a beginner or advanced beginner route) without performing anything close to an Insta-worthy move. I’m not good. I’m not terrible. I’m not afraid. It’s incredibly fun.

I’ve also enjoyed meeting friends at the climbing gym. It doesn’t matter if they’ve climbed or not. Rock climbing in a gym is, in my opinion, a perfect activity for anyone who wants to do something just for fun. This has, for me, included two young boys in my life, one of whom is almost too small for the smallest harness. Honestly, I think I climb a lot like a four-year-old kid. No real self-awareness, minimal strategy, indifference to how I look, mostly in it for the play of it. Regardless of age, if you don’t pay close attention to the “rules” of “good” climbing, it’s just a vertical playground (with some key safety rules a person of any age is wise to heed).

Climbing like this is golf’s exact opposite. No scorecard. No objective rating system of any kind (at my level), and no expectations that I or anyone else will be any good at it. Right now, somehow, that seems perfect.

Second, guitar. This one is a bit more sticky. It’s still pleasurable. I’ve developed a beginner-level “mastery” of a few basic chords. I can “play” one of my favorite songs. I have no real clue how to pair strumming and chord changes, but I think I’ll get to that. I think I have a below-average singing voice, but I like singing along anyway.

Guitar playing is way more objective than rock climbing in my view. I honestly have no idea how I look trying to scale a climbing wall (and…I want to keep it that way), but even I (and my amateur understanding of music and my imperfect ear) can tell when something sounds off. It’s not quite “objective,” it’s not completely binary, but…it’s obvious. Still, I’m persisting. When I occasionally find myself able to do a few successful chord changes in a row while singing one of the three songs I’ve tried, I occasionally laugh out loud with sheer surprise and delight.

Here’s another thing I picked up by picking up a guitar. I’ve listened to other friends play at my request. They are FAR BETTER than I am, but they also make mistakes. I can hear them for the above-mentioned reasons. But these others often make it very obvious when they err. They pause, they sigh, they shake their heads, they even apologize to woefully untalented me.

Long ago I did a remote call with a geographically dispersed team. It was long before such calls were standard fare. The call wasn’t working. I was in charge of it. I was pissed, embarrassed, and totally frustrated. And I let all those emotions show. After that call, a colleague gave me great feedback. He said that the call eventually worked out, but that my reaction to the technical breakdown stood out as the biggest issue of the entire experience. He suggested I be more patient and even blase about these kinds of glitches so that others would feel equally calm and understanding. That input was gold. I think of it often. I practice it…sometimes…when I’m at my best.

But it is going to help me as I continue building skills and callouses in guitar. I am going to “mess up.” I will likely mess up with this instrument for as long as I’m game to keep trying. I will likely get better (and also keep trying longer) if I forgive myself for the errant notes, unintentionally muted strings, percentage of time I spend looking down at the neck of the guitar, and the rest.

I am fundamentally terrible at playing the guitar. And it still is bringing me joy. So if I can keep that emotion alive, alongside my desire to be “better,” I’ll keep playing anyway.

I think engaging these two activities is giving me many, many overlapping benefits:

1. I don’t even need to tell my perfectionist persona to be quiet. I am SO FAR AWAY from being even passable at either activity, that she’s wholly uninterested. That feels relaxing.
2. I want more things (and people) that I love outside of work. This isn’t because my life is lacking anything, it’s because I love work so much that I’d like to find a few other pursuits that I love as much. Not so I do less work. Just so I LOVE MORE.
3. I am enjoying being 60 doing things that are new. One exercise in my guitar learning app is single string exercises. I cannot tell you how difficult these are for me. Sure, chords are hard, I have tiny fingers, half the time (at least) I’m doing something wrong. But these single string moves? When I do them, I find myself talking to my brain: “Brain, I am noticing that these are harder for you than other things. I think that’s because you’re a little older than most newbie guitar players. I’m proud of you for activating some synapses that perhaps have grown dormant. Maybe you won’t ever be good at single string playing, but I give you props for trying.”

Where are you terrible? What’s your why for keeping on? Let me know on LinkedIn.