On Beginning
Being reminded of what goes into doing a new thing
Most of the sporting activities I know how to do, I learned when I was a child. I have learned very few new sports since I became an adult.
One of the reasons for that is that learning new things can be challenging. When Zumba dance classes were the rage, a friend talked me into trying them out. Learning new dance steps, even simple ones called out by the class leader, was hard for me. We were in one of those rooms at the YMCA with mirrors along one wall and I was about five inches taller than everyone else in the class. Which made me feel uncoordinated as well as freakishly tall.
I’ve watched friends learn new sports and enjoy both the process of learning as well as the sport itself. A friend who always wanted to learn to surf went on vacation in her 50s and had a blast figuring out how to ride waves in Hawaii. Another friend who started rock climbing in her twenties and never stopped, now teaches her grandkids how to climb. My granddaughter, Ruby, after finding out that Mimi can climb mountains, wants Mimi to teach her.
Starting new things can be hard. Part of the reason I’m not zipping over to Yakima to let my granddaughter practice at the climbing gym is that I would have to practice at the climbing gym. For decades I have resolutely refused the blandishments of my friend to just try out rock climbing. I know I’d have a harness. I’d be safe. I just hate the feeling of being inept. Which is the natural state for most of us when we do something new.
Luckily for me, this dislike of the untried doesn’t extend to work.
One of the new things I’m trying is podcasting. Eugene and I did our sixth episode of the Bad Boss Brief yesterday.
I was in the garage. I’m having some work done in my house, so there were workers banging about, demolishing the ancient furnace. I relocated to the garage, sitting in front of the screen that hides the workout equipment in what has become our pandemic gym.
I was reminded, not for the first time, about what can happen when you start something new.
First, there is the tech. Most new work things require new technology. I consider myself to be pretty tech savvy, but even after months of this, I still struggle to master the combination of audio in and audio out, a live broadcast with commenters and a co-host, all spread out on my computer screen.
The best way to learn is to try.
People often find new tech unnerving. I think we can forget how automatic it can become to use a specific software tool or document format. Switching can be distressing for people. Which is why I always recommend that companies take a beat when they are using new tech and asking others to use it. Give people lots of time to try. Give them training, live, as well as training options they can watch in their own time. Like me, stopping and rewinding the video that is supposed to tell me how to get rid of the lag time between my speaking into the mic and the sound getting through my headphones.
It's going to be uncomfortable
Feeling uncomfortable when you do a new thing is part of the process. It doesn’t signal ineptitude or anything wrong. It’s just discomfort.
When I do presentation trainings, I tell people that before I speak in public, I get very nervous, sometimes to the point of being physically ill. They are always surprised, since I don’t appear to be nervous. Anxiety doesn’t actually shoot from your head like flames. Other people can’t always see it.
Yesterday, as I was getting ready to start the live podcast, the workers took a break. In their van. Which was parked right outside the garage. Where I was going to record a podcast. One of the workers, a heavy smoker, began to cough with an alarming ferocity. He coughed for a long time. While he was done with his break before I hit record, it unsettled me. I was nervous throughout, and I thought for sure that the recording would be awful.
And it wasn’t. You can’t hear anyone hacking up a lung, and you can’t tell that I’m gripped by panic. Flames do not, in fact, shoot from my head.
Learn, adjust, learn, adjust
When I give a presentation or tell a story on a stage, I practice like a maniac. I rehearse and rehearse and rehearse. So, when I started doing the podcast, I did the same thing. I wrote notes that were complete enough to be a script. I assumed that what worked in a similar area would work in the new one.
I was wrong.
I realized yesterday that the dynamic of doing a podcast with another person is more fluid. I was searching through my notes rather than listening attentively to my co-host. Eugene is an accomplished, experienced podcaster. He dials in a couple of minutes before we go live, untroubled. And he listens to what I’m saying and responds. I would be better served with a light outline we can share. So I can pay attention in the moment and respond. We haven’t run out of things to talk about in thirty years, we’re not going to start now just because the “live” button is highlighted in red at the top of the screen.
What should work in a new thing doesn’t always work. You need to shift, learn, try again, and repeat that process. Which means the new thing feeling can continue for a long time. Because you are doing the new thing in a new way. Again and again.
Fall down. Get up. Fall down. Get up.
When I was a kid, I liked to ride horses. I never fell off a horse. I managed enough broken bones from other sports that I’m glad I didn’t add to it with a tumble from a horse. But I think it made me a more tentative rider not to have fallen down and gotten up.
I’ve failed a few times on my life, literally and figuratively falling down and getting up. And there’s a useful muscle memory built into falling down and getting up.
The other day, Ruby was running and fell down. She wasn’t hurt, but surprised. I came around the corner and saw her on the ground. I wasn’t sure if she had fallen or if she was scrutinizing a bug as she is wont to do. She saw me and started crying. (I have that effect on people.) I picked her up and held her. Sometimes failures or falls are painful, and we need comfort and reassurance. But remembering how to dust ourselves off and get back out there is always a good thing to practice.
Rest and adjust
Some new things are quite significant. And it can take a while to adjust. We should give ourselves time.
My grandson is learning how to walk. The other day we put shoes on him for the first time. He was perplexed by these cumbersome appendages. Watching him reminds me what a big shift it is for small humans to go from crawling to walking. It’s the motion equivalent of going from 2D to 3D. And it can take a while.
Parents of young children talk about sleep regression. This when a child is about to make a developmental leap forward, like walking, and their sleep is disrupted. No wonder! Imagine the new neural pathways that are being built each night. After a few halting steps across the kitchen floor, my grandson reaches up his arms to me with a plaintive look, as if he needs some rest and comfort after such a weird new experience, this walking upright with shoes on situation.
Change and new endeavors can be exciting, challenging, terrifying and exhausting. Make sure you build some rest and comfort into the process of trying new things. And have fun!