There are two types of people in the world (OK, there are way more than two types, but for this allegory, there are two.)
- Those who like to be good at things and get frustrated with the learning process (I may or may not be speaking from personal experience here) and abandon ship.
- Those who have a goal and go after it, regardless of skill gaps, setbacks, and learning curves.
I used to be the former, but I’ve (mostly and slowly) become the latter.
It’s not that I’ve ever been afraid of hard work, I just don’t enjoy the “Messy Middle.” Being in the Messy Middle usually means going through a state of conscious incompetence, which is uncomfortable. Seriously, who wants to knowingly suck at something?
It’s why I stop/start activities like learning graphic facilitation, or speaking Spanish. The challenge is (obviously) that if we don’t stick with something long enough, we’re never going to make progress and become proficient. We will forever be stagnant and standing still. Also not in my DNA.
At an earlier point in my life, I envied people achieving things I wanted to achieve, but I didn’t know how to do them and couldn’t fathom how to get myself from point A to point B. How were these people getting it done?
What I wasn’t seeing was their Messy Middle. The times when they were awkward, uncomfortable, frustrated, less than fully competent, and climbing their way to conscious competence.
Should you find yourself in a similar situation, here are a few ideas to help you navigate the Messy Middle and be on your way to conscious competence (or even unconscious competence!)
- If you see it in others, it resides in you. OK, this might be a little “woo” for some of you, and yet I believe it to be true. When you see someone demonstrating skills that you admire, know that you wouldn’t recognize their grace, skill, or ease if there wasn’t a part of you that was also capable of doing that thing. The only difference between you and them is that they’ve practiced, and you haven’t.
- You can’t go around, you gotta go through. There are some things for which there is no shortcut. You can’t wish yourself to be a better speaker, handle difficult situations with more dexterity, or be more strategic. You need to build the skill, and at some point, that means feeling uncomfortable and, yep, probably being awkward in the process.
- Make it your own. It sounds silly when I put it down “on paper” but it took me a long time to realize that not only is it OK to take artistic license, it’s usually better to do so! If we spend all our time emulating someone verbatim, it’s much less likely to be authentic.
This week I’ll be focusing on #2 as I continue my way through a 6-week workout program and will celebrate my discomfort and awkwardness. Because I’m not going to get any stronger just sitting and watching someone else workout.
