Hey everyone! I hope you are all are doing well.
This week has been full of challenges but still a good week. I have pushed myself outside of my comfort zone a few times. I also have been pushing myself to work on skills that I especially struggle with. While working on some of these skills, I have had a lot of feelings come up.
Something I struggle with is being okay with not doing something perfectly. If I know something is not absolutely 100%, I tend to think that it is not good. Like I mentioned last week, I tend to really focus on what I am doing wrong, or what is “bad”. I have difficulty finding what I am doing well.
This past week, one of my rep check challenges was to do a children’s song in all barre chords. Now, I hate barre chords. I avoided them every chance I had during undergrad and learned them just enough to pass my guitar competency, then never looked at them again. As a result, barre chords are something that I majorly struggle with.
To prepare for this rep challenge, I went up and down the neck of my guitar practicing the different chord shapes. I would practice until my hand began to cramp. After a week, they sill were not “good” which made me quite frustrated. One of my supervisors asked me how my rep songs were coming along. I told here that my barre chords were still terrible and that I wasn’t sure how it would go. She reminded me that they are not looking for perfection by rather progress.
This got me thinking: how many times have I given up on certain skills or techniques because I’m not perfect? Even if I was making progress, I would get frustrated and decide that it’s just not something I was good at. As a result, I would then find ways to avoid it, like barre chords.
In a way, this is a form of self-sabotage. If I don’t think I am good at something, I want to avoid it meaning I won’t give it my all out of fear of failure. In turn, this leads to me not doing well which reinforces the idea that I am bad at it and the cycle continues. This is definitely not a healthy mentality.
Internship is about learning, growth, and progress. I’m not supposed to be perfect. It’s okay to need help, to have questions, to be corrected, and to need to practice or work on skills. One of my new goals is change my mindset; to tell myself that progress is more important that perfection.
Although this mentality will not change overnight, I am going to try to remind myself that the important part is not being perfect, but rather the progress I am making. Trying to be perfect is an impossible goal that will just hinder my growth. I am human, which means that I will never truly be perfect at anything and that is okay.
Thanks for reading! Stay safe and healthy!
Cicely McCain
