give yourself a chance to get good
So much of the culture we surround young people with is dedicated to sorting and ranking them. Understandably, we totter into adulthood boxed into a number of categories. Most of these categories are altogether made-up. We see a lot of our abilities and our prospects as fixed. Politically, we turn into resentful haters of systems around us or delirious believers in Fate - in both cases, denying ourselves agency that could change things for the better now and later. When we consider a new project or a job transition or social opportunity, our inner voices chant things like:
Oh, I’m not a ____ person.
That wouldn’t work for me — I’m a visual/auditory/kinesthetic learner.
I’m not good at _____.
I’ll never _____.
I’ve seen people who are good at _____, and they’re way better/richer/smarter/more connected than me.
Many of these self-defeating mantras cash out as a skills assessment, one you might even be proud of because it shows how humble and self-aware you are: “I’m bad at ____.” “I’m just not a good _____.”
Some of the best thrills and most enduring satisfactions come from undoing these mantras - with evidence. Proving to yourself that you can do something that goes against the stereotype you’ve imposed on yourself.
Preference is not identity. Personality is not ability. I’ve seen outstanding high school teachers, among the very best in the country, with radically different personalities. Stoics to bleeding hearts; anxious young wrecks to wise old heads. Ditto for parents, horticulturalists, and writers.
Before you sink into the familiar comfort of typecasting yourself, double check: have you given yourself the chance to be good at this? I don’t mean “casually attempted a thing a few times to see if you were an effortless genius.” I mean something more like:
read 5-10 books about it
watched a 90-minute instructional video (and actually paused it and did the exercises)
got 1:1 coaching from someone trustworthy (because they really know you or really know the discipline)
pushed all the way to a complete sh*tty rough draft, solicited feedback on it, then “rewrote” based on the feedback (there’s a viable rough draft of pretty much everything, from native plant gardens to small businesses to feature films - don’t limit your thinking to writing)
-eric
