I work with teenage girls in our church. Last night we had a “Bob Ross” activity where we tried to paint a canvas by following along with one of his videos. I dressed up like him to help set the mood, and everyone had a good laugh over that. Each girl had a canvas, brushes, paint, and water. We started the video and began painting. It was fun at first, and then it went downhill for a lot of girls quickly. I started hearing a lot of girls talk about how bad they were at it, how they didn’t know how to paint. There was frustration and pleas to pause the video because they couldn’t keep up. They were comparing their paintings to their neighbors and deciding everyone else was better then they were. One of the girls who was there came to me in tears about 20 minutes in because she “couldn’t do it, and she had ruined her canvas, and she just wanted to go home.”
Why do we think we should be good at stuff we’ve never done before? Does that develop on its own or is there something in our culture that instills that false concept. Of course we aren’t going to be good at stuff we’ve never done before, or even stuff we’ve done a few times. The objective of trying new things isn’t to see if we are good at it. I think the point of trying new things is to see if we enjoy it, have an interest in it, or want to see if it could help us in some way.
I was listening to a podcast yesterday with a famous country singer. The person interviewing him asked if he thought his abilities were a gift or a skill. He didn’t even hesitate before replying that they were a skill. He knew how much work he had put into developing the skills that got him to where he was today. I think too often we walk around with the idea that if we had greatness, it would have been bestowed upon us at birth. It simply isn’t true. If we want to be good at anything, we have to first start with not being very good. We can’t give up on things or not try because we are afraid we won’t be good at them. Of course we won’t be good at things we haven’t done before. So we shouldn’t let that stop us from trying new things and continuing to pursue the things that interest us.
Work In Progress 