Written by Avery Shandelman, Director of Design
“You should play guitar, you’ll love it,” I’ve said to people when talking about my passion for music. People seem to have the same responses each time: “I wish, but I could never be good at guitar”. Or my favorite response, “I tried to play guitar, but I stopped because I wasn’t good.”
Duh. Obviously, you weren’t Jimi Hendrix after initially gripping a guitar pick. If that were the case, they would hang your headshot next to a photograph of Albert Einstein, a portrait of Mozart, and the official cape worn by Superman.
We see people who are skillful everywhere we go, but we do not see how atrocious they were when they first began. Alex Honnold climbed 3000+ foot El Capitan without any safety equipment–do you think he was capable of this as a kid when he began climbing? No! The key difference between Honnold, and somebody who stopped because they were “bad,” is that Honnold never quit.
About every motivational speaker or advertisement carries the mantra, “Never give up.” Nike’s motto “Just Do It”, applies this as well. This is not bull***t. This notion constantly pounded into our heads is often taught by those who master their craft. However, these exceptional people are no different from everybody else–they failed repeatedly until they finally became…good at their something. From this understanding, our perception of our own potential is littered with a false set of barriers, sounding like: “I’m not musically inclined”, or “I’m not a numbers person”. Despite our barriers, we are capable of learning any new skills we would like. Given this straightforward realization, I developed a step-by-step guide on learning new skills.
How To Learn New Skills
1. Find a skill you will enjoy learning.
2. Be horrible at that skill.
3. Learn from your failures.
4. Get better.
5. Repeat.
Now you’re probably wondering how this relates to HVC. We are a professional organization full of non-professionals. We are students who try new experiences, learn new skills, and apply it to real clients. We are living and breathing failures, well on our way to becoming good at something.
Next time you pick up a guitar, don’t run the other way when you sound horrible! Keep going, and eventually, you won’t sound half bad…
Happy Valley Comm 