don’t forget the second part where i quit something i’m good at because i don’t immediately see exponential growth which means my current abilities are a mere fluke
I like the old line, “If at first you don’t succeed, try again, and again…Then give up. There’s no point in making a fool of yourself.”
I’m sure this was used in a beer advert in the UK in the 90s or early 00s
I heard it from 1920s movie star W. C. Fields.
My grandmother told me this when I kept falling off my dinosaur.
My 10 year old son is like that. It’s been a chore teaching him otherwise and explaining that some skills could take years.
It’s tricky for sure. For my kids, I try to take any and all wins (no matter the size) and emphasize how it took hard work and practice for them to succeed. I also remind them that even in failure they can learn something for next time. Hopefully it’ll set the right attitude for them. Good luck!
Something helpful someone said to me is that if someone says something like “I can’t do it”, simply say “yet” and it immediately changes their point of view.
That’s actually a good one. Thank you. I’ll start using it.
Thanks for that. He seems to get frustrated around not being able to just solve all of his math problems right away. Like when I point out some mistakes he has in his homework (after he asks me to) he gets frustrated with that. Every time he does, I explain that it’s ok to make mistakes and it’s good to learn from them. He’s been getting better.
If at first you don’t succeed redefine success
This what Trump is doing, right?
It’s how you win bigly.
I’ve been consistently trying to write and draw for 15+ years, with weekly practices, and I haven’t seen any appreciable improvement. My handwriting is still erratic and illegible, and I can’t carry a story thread over a page or two without stumbling and falling hard. Meanwhile, both my grandfather and mother are accomplished artists. Guess it skipped a generation…
Do you enjoy doing it? If so, who cares if you’re good. If not, why are you doing something you don’t enjoy?
I don’t enjoy doing it, but I do it with the goal of showing myself I CAN do it and to gain joy/accomplishment for that, and also because these are some specific weak points of mine I’ve been trying to polish and repair for ages. Also, I’m always very impressed with people whose handwriting looks like it was printed because it’s so precise and consistent. Mine has always looked like I was a doctor (I wish), so I just wanted to improve in that regard.
i once visited a friend who was in the middle of writing a screenplay and he had an entire 20 ft wall covered in colored post-it notes for various characters and story arcs. maybe that would help you.
maybe thats a good use case for spatial applications.
As the other person mentioned, maybe you should reconsider the way you organise your writing.
If you cannot hold down plotlines while you’re just writing off the top of your head, you could try doing more planning and mapping out your plot.
If you don’t mind the mess, and prefer physical/tactile notes, stuff like the post its the other user mentioned, or something like a cork board could probably be good.
If you prefer to be super organised and don’t mind digital notes, there’s a lot of free to use organisation/notes apps, I really like Obsidian.
… Are you me?
My way of quitting that was Dark Souls 3 (even though I apparently suck at it way more than I should) - Can’t beat that part? Get your arse back over there and stop complaining. You WILL succeed.
The soulsborne games are a legitimately effective way to build tenacity.
I tend to be that way in the wood shop. I’ll try a technique, and if it doesn’t produce usable results I ditch it almost immediately and try something very different. LIke I have completely given up on cutting tenons on the table saw, that’s my router table’s job.
I like to preach about practice. It’s corny sounding, but practice is everything. You gotta focus on the thing rather than how you feel about your progress with the thing.
Why learn to program computers or make art over years of training when half way through AI can come and take your job prospects and make it so all that time was waisted? Something that you can learn quick you can do for a while before it becomes obsolete.
