Experimentation opens the door to results

For the last couple months I've been taking a basic woodworking class. Last night I finally had a chance to start playing with the lathe.

Now, the last time I used a lathe was in 7th grade woodshop, so in the 27 years since you might say my skills have gotten a little rusty.

I bought some pieces of wood to use solely for experimentation. No project. No focus on creating a great end result. Just playing with it to learn what I'm doing again and familiarize myself with the technique, the tools, and the shapes they create.

Given that my intention was to focus entirely on the learning aspect of it and not the end result, it was interesting to notice how I had to consciously stop myself from tensing up if I did something I didn't like aesthetically. I had to remind myself that it was OK even if I "screwed the whole thing up," as long as it served the purpose of giving me insight and understanding I can apply to my efforts in the future.

That's one of my big bugaboos, trying to be too good at things from the onset. I'm getting better with time, but it's good to have things like this to remind me that with anything new, my first task is to learn, and only then can I work on perfecting.

When I focus on experimentation over end results, it takes the pressure off to do it just right, which in turn opens the door to a free-flowing feeling of doing and learning, rather than a tense feeling of must...be...perfect.

And paradoxically, by not focusing on the end result, I end up opening the door to much better results (not to mention more fun) than obsessing on those end results from the beginning.

In my book, 101 Ways to Get Wild About Work, there's a chapter called, "You Can't Fail in an Experiment." It's an approach that lets you take perfectionism out of the equation and lets you experiment and learn.

Is there anything new you want to do where your desire to get it just right is holding you back? What would an experimentation approach look like? What step can you take with an eye towards learning?

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Curt Rosengren, Passion Catalyst ^TM