I used to be so terrified of trying new activities that I would avoid them at any nearly cost. Once, for example, when I was about 13, an older teenage friend of mine offered to teach my friend and me how to surf.
I was terrified. I was afraid that I would look like an idiot because I wasn’t fantastically co-ordinated in the first place. So I got “sick.” Yes, I avoided a free surfing lesson by pretending to have a cold—because I was afraid that random people at the beach would laugh at me for being a bad surfer.
Now that I’m a bit older, and a bit less concerned what people think of me, I feel stupid for skipping opportunities like that.
Do you ever avoid something because you thought you wouldn’t be any good? Or have you given up on learning a new skill because you weren’t good at it after a couple tries?
If so, then remember this: “Nobody laughs at babies because they can’t talk.” That’s what Carol Dweck writes in her book, Mindset. Don’t expect yourself to be great at a new activity when you first try it. You may not start off great at something, but you can improve.
You Can’t Measure The Slope of a Line With Only One Point
If you’ve tried to learn something and then given up (be it science, sewing or soccer), you probably quit because when you first tried it, you weren’t very good. You may have mentally decided, This isn’t for me. I’m just not any good at ________.”
But you can’t determine your abilities based on a single attempt at something. Let’s just realistically graph this out. If your first attempt at basketball was horrid (see the graph), you might conclude, basketball is clearly not my thing. But what if you kept practicing? You might find your results each time are marginally better. Projecting forward, notice that the arrow just keeps going up as you get better and better!
You Don’t Know Your Potential
You might think some things are just beyond you. You might think a lot of things are. That you’re just not smart enough or athletic enough to do it. But there is literally no way to know what your potential at anything is before you have attempted it.
Advice to Parents
Encourage, Don’t Flatter
Whether you are trying to motivate your child to try something new, or just not give up on his tricky math homework, take this advice from Joel Hilliker’s November/December 2010 Philadelphia News column: encourage, don’t flatter.
He writes: “I recently read about an interesting set of experiments conducted in the 1990s. Four hundred 10-to-12-year-olds from a variety of backgrounds were given an intelligence test where they had to deduce and predict patterns among sets of various shapes. When they finished, the experimenters told all of them, regardless of their performance, that they had done really well, getting 80 percent of the puzzles right. But then, the twist. One third of the children received no other feedback. Another third was encouraged with one sentence of praise, saying, essentially: You must have tried very hard to have received such a good score. The final third was flattered with one sentence saying: Wow — to have done so well, you must be really smart!”
The result: when given further challenges, the children who were flatted for their intellect went on to choose the easier tasks more often, and performed worse on subsequent tests. On the other hand, the children praised for their effort performed best—choosing to take on challenging tasks, and performing better on subsequent tests.
Mr. Hilliker concludes: “The lesson? Wrong praise can devastate a child’s motivation. Stay away from lauding him or her for some supposed innate ability — you’re so smart, you’re so talented. Such statements are a trap. ‘A man that flattereth his neighbour [or his child] spreadeth a net for his feet’ (Proverbs 29:5). But praising a child for his effort can really encourage him to stretch himself, to work hard — and, when the going gets tough, to keep at it.”
If you would like to read his full article, feel free to write to letters@trueeducation.org, and we will be happy to send you a PDF.
I don’t mean to say everyone can be an Albert Einstein, Tiger Woods or Adele. But you don’t know how good you can get, so keep trying and see how far you can go.
Think about a skill you have already mastered. Now, fill that skill in the following blanks. (If you can’t think of any skills, ask your parents the next couple questions about when you were potty-trained.) When you first started learning __________, you weren’t very good, were you? Wasn’t ____________ difficult at first? Of course! Everything is difficult before it is easy.
So don’t give up as soon as you start, and don’t assume you’ll never be able to do something just because you can’t figure it out or get it right at first.
Goo Goo Spoo Spoo
Still, when we first try something and do it poorly, it can be discouraging. To beat that negativity, keep these things in mind:
- Failing at something doesn’t mean that you are a failure. Failure is an inevitable part of the journey to success. The first time a baby tries to talk, it’s going to fall. That’s normal! Imagine if babies gave up trying to speak the first time they tried to say “Please pass me a spoon,” and it came out “Goo goo spoo spoo.” The world would be silent and sad. Your current ability doesn’t represent your total capability.
- Don’t be afraid to admit you have failed, that you don’t understand, or that you need help. We sometimes try to rationalize our failure (This subject is just stupid. My teacher is a moron. I hate this sport anyway.). You will learn much faster if you’re not afraid to admit when you have no idea what you are doing. Seek out advice and constructive criticism from your teachers, coaches, or others who are better than you. Criticism can be tough to take, but if you want to improve, it’s the quickest shortcut. The improvement you get from applying instruction or criticism will boost your confidence.
- Focus on the bright spots. It can be discouraging to shoot 10 free throws and miss 9. But instead of getting upset about the 9 you missed, focus on what went right on the one that went in. What did I do differently that time? Analyze what you did correctly when you have a success (however rare those times are), and keep shooting, trying to repeat what worked.
There are lots of things I’ve learned to do now that I’m (slightly) older that I avoided when I was a teenager because I thought I wouldn’t be any good, or because I tried it once and didn’t do well. What do you want to be better at? Want to be a great student? Learn to fix your car? Get picked first for pickup basketball games? Don’t let a fear of failure hold you back—go for it!
Hi, I’m researching “how to surf” and found this. Thanks!