Mastery ~ An Interesting Way To Get Unstuck
You’re here to do big things in the world and make your unique difference, and it can be scary. Maybe you want to play bigger, move forward in a new direction or go after your next dream. And, whether it’s fear or doubt or some old negative message that says, “_______” (you fill in the blank), those get in your way and you get stuck.
Maybe it’s “Who am I to write this book?” and you try but then stop your self from even starting or you start and get frustrated because it feels too hard and you quit, and maybe you do that over and over again? Me too. It happens to us because we’re trying to do something out of the ordinary.
I’ve been trying to do a few things that I really want to do to be of greater service through my business. I kept starting and stopping, feeling more and more frustrated and sadly feeling worse about my self.
I was mired it stuck. I’d take steps forward, feel good, then hit a wall and it just wasn’t working… over and over and over. I kept trying different things and nothing was working. That stuck and repeated failure made me start questioning my self and what I knew. I started looking for another way through because obviously what I was doing wasn’t working. Then I started studying mastery and something amazing came out of that.
The Interesting Gift Of Mastery
Mastery starts with sucking. Yeah, I said that. It’s got built in “not good enough”. Oh… so freeing!
The huge gift in working to master something is the gift of getting to suck when we start. Mastery is all about getting better, practicing because we’re not great, practicing because we want to be better, doing the basic actions over and over until we master whatever it is. It’s not about getting it “right” the first time, or even the thousandth. Even the best athletes keep practicing.
It’s about starting where you are and practicing over and over. And even when you’re great at it, practicing over and over.
So many of us hold ourselves back because we think we aren’t good enough… but, if we are working on mastering something, we’re starting knowing we aren’t good enough. That’s the whole point. That’s the magic of mastery. We’re starting knowing we aren’t perfect or maybe don’t even have a clue but we start. We start and we keep going, we fail and we keep going. It’s the process.
We all already know how to do this. Think of walking or talking. We saw or heard someone else do it and we wanted to do it to. We sucked, we fell doing it, we said “goo goo” but look at us now. ;) And we use those same skills most every day. I still work on my communication skills.
So, what’s that new thing you want to do? What do you want to master? What if you just let your self start? What if you had a long term vision of what you want and you just started where you are today and let your self learn? What if you got to suck and you knew it was part of the process? What if you got to suck and still know you are an amazing, brilliant, capable, wonderful human being.
Again, what if …you just let your self start where you are? What if you got to try something new and totally suck at first. Maybe at first you did it alone until you got a little bit better. And you just let your self be bad at it, be not good enough at it. And then as your skills and muscles grew, you shared or did it in public.
Or just go for it. I went to my first improv class recently. What I loved about it (other than the stretch of going) is that there is no failure in improv. In the first exercise when we made a mistake we, all of us together, did an odd movement and said “Aooga” loudly. That part was so much fun. No mistakes, just fun and learning.
What if we could do that in life? Or even just in our heads. What could you do? Where could you go in your life?
So, what’s something you’d love to master? What if you wanted to write? Maybe you dream of writing a book. What if you just started writing? Maybe even just two minutes a day. And, since you’re working on mastery, you got to start with just a focus on the idea of mastering it, not how good you do it now. What if you got to just do it really badly but the point to the action, is just to be doing it day after day.
Okay, your turn. What is that you want to go for?
Now, after you’ve come up with something. Here’s a tip on how to start. Let’s borrow something from Atomic Habits and a little bit from me:
“I will [skill you’re mastering] at [time you’ll do it] in [location]…
and I’ll add, put a specific amount of time or an the specific desired amount you will accomplish so you know when you’ve succeeded. And, put a checkbox before. (I love check boxes.)
Example: ❑ I will write at 8:00am in my office for 1 hour.
Example: ❑ I will write one page in my office at 8:00am.
Decide and then do it.
Start. Expect to do it poorly at first. Expect to forget or avoid one day. Recommit and restart. As masters, we let ourselves learn and grow and practice and suck, and keep trying. We push through the fear and frustration, the tedium. We get to hate it and love it, to not have a clue how or be great at it… and be okay with all of that, and just keep working on mastery.
Helpful Thoughts/Affirmations:
I get to start where I am, with what I have, and learn and grow and become.
It’s okay to suck, I’m working on mastery.
This sucks but I am enough.
Wow, I am good at this!
Just go do it!
To you, Courageous One!
Go after your dreams. You’ve got this. Just start. Own your fabulous extraordinariness and work on your skills so you can powerfully make your difference in the world.