Last week at this time I made a “to do” list of things I wanted and needed to do over the past 7 days (I requested some time off from work to get things done). There were 25 items on it, just things like “Clean up a certain room of the house” or “dispose of this item”.
Today’s the last day of my mini-holiday vacation, and I didn’t get everything on that list checked off. But, I did get many of the things accomplished. All but 2 things, in fact.
92% is quite good I think. Now if only I can apply this way of thinking to other things.
Sep 10, 2007, 02:35PM PDT | 4 cheers | 3 comments
In particular, the “learn to play piano” goal is helping in a big way.
Last month, I signed up for weekly piano lessons, and something I’m noticing during the lessons is that I tend to get a little nervous when my teacher has me attempt to play a new song for the first time.
At those very moments, I think the “fear of failure” demon manifests itself in a big way, as I sit at the piano for what seems like 5 minutes (was probably actually 5 seconds), just thinking “What if I make a mistake and push the wrong key?”.
But I continue on, trying to play the new song regardless of missed notes and other mistakes. So I’m slowly beginning to realize that those little “failures” are building experience.
If I can overcome the fear in that situation, then it should be no problem doing the same in other situations.
Jul 19, 2007, 08:42PM PDT | 3 cheers | 1 comment
And while lately I’ve been trying to work on improving myself in various ways, this goal in particular could take some time.
If I’m in the right mood, I will tell myself to do something, and I will stop at nothing to complete the task. But other times I will overthink things for too long and decide to not do a thing, “knowing” that I would not be successful.
If there was an instant way to change my way of thinking, I would go for that. In the meantime, I’ll work on this gradually.
Jun 13, 2007, 09:14PM PDT | 2 cheers | 3 comments
