As I sat inside my L board car I said, “I am going to drive like a champ!” If only I knew theory wouldn’t take me long. Going out and trying was tough, scarier than I thought, very stressful and a bad experience overall. I didn’t take out the car for few days and one day I was convinced by the thought “The best way to learn something is by doing” and guess what the result was?
No! Not what you thought! I was bad, again! With repetitive convincing and trying I have become a better driver today.
I am sure all of you have experienced something similar to this. Some of you might have experienced few challenges where you tend to give up early; I have faced a few and have given up within 24hrs unable realize my potential to do it. What’s holding us back?
I don’t know how to do it! Should I avoid it?
When an unexpected challenge approaches you, what would you say? Bring it on baby? Or hmm Its tough and don’t know to do! Well, I have been a huge fan of the latter sentence and that’s the reason I use it frequently. So why would I feel this? The first thing would be its NEW! It’s out of the comfort zone, there is an uncertainty about how it would work, the fear of not working out well. Enough reasons to cut short the attempt of trying right?
What is the harm in trying?
So, what if I tried? I may fail in the first attempt, might fail in second too and the third. I may keep hitting failures repeatedly. But one thing I am sure of is that my second attempt is going to be a little better than the first one and so on till I finally get it right. And how long should we try it? How long do you give a baby whether it starts to walk or not? You will give it till it does right? And then teach it to run, cycle and fall and a lot more. Why limit ourselves to one or two shots? Is the pain of failing that bad?
Sooo.. Let’s try and learn it!
Great I didn’t get it at the first shot! No one does! Every great guy was once an amateur. Let me be persistent to see the results. Now trying the Edison way “I haven’t failed. I have just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.”OK, I will make my initial failures as an experience to learn from and not repeat my mistakes. Not repeating the mistakes and trying the better ways to work with I gradually see positive results. On pushing myself a little harder everyday keeping aside the failures and being persistent I can see my results, POSITIVE RESULTS!
What you realize
We realize a lot of things in the process and something I have constantly kept telling is that ” Success is never final and failures are never fatal“. You got to keep trying to make it work. There are a thousand reasons as to why something might not work and a thousand more as to why they can. All you have to do is decide which side you want to give importance to. If you want to win and if you want that result badly, I would strongly suggest you believe the latter one. For if you want to fail, fail anyway, there will be lots of reasons to give, you don’t have to think of it right away.
You also realize that you are going to screw up!
You also realize that you are not perfect and your ego takes a beating. Let it take a beating! So what? It is not going to break you or me, it is going to put us through a new challenge, it is going to ask us a few uncomfortable questions. Well, try it out, you can either feel bad about it or be excited about it and start doing things differently.
Who you are and what you get to be…
I read somewhere that who you are and what you get to be is the greatest achievement in life. At the risk of sounding a little philosophical, I would say I strongly want to believe in that. Too many times we are lost in the pursuit of something, chasing success, chasing achievements, chasing money and a lot more other things and someone gets neglected in the process. It is the knowledge of who we are and what we want to do. Don’t you think that person deserves a little attention?
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You are right, repeated failures would not stop us from trying again. If it was, then we would not have light bulb or aeroplane.
:) Thank you Abhijit ji. True, failures alone never stop us, it is how we respond to them that makes a whole lot of difference..
well I started driving when i was 14 I think , in india license is easy to get .. so i been driving for ages BUT proper dricing i learnt when i came ot uk .. you know I filed the test THREE times before they gave me the licese beacuse I had some bad habits ..
Not looking in mirrior, hand on the side , crossing my arms while driving etc etc ..
Then I joined the force here and got higher training in pursuit and other tricks of the trade.. :)
Aaah! 14?! That’s an early start?! True mark of a success I believe :).
He he, I have heard it is pretty challenging out there to get a license, that too with so many restrictions. Oh nice I didn’t know you were in the force, thats really cool :)
You nailed it Vinay! I am so with you on this. I have been trying to get a grip on my driving since long. Keep giving up every time I have an accident and finally now, since a month I have been persistently driving every single day with my driver sitting next to me when I drive!
You’re right, persistence is the key word in every endeavor.
Thank you Vinodini :). Aaah lovely, that’s a good progress. Like we say, don’t give up till there are enough dents on the car ;)
Good one Vinay…I have experienced quite a few of them but the one that I actually gave up was learning to play guitar.. It asked for so much patience and dedication that I started losing it.. and whenever I practiced people around would laugh or make fun of my poor skill, hence I dropped the entire plan.. when I look at that dusted guitar I feel so sad.. I would have been a pro by now.. This very thought makes me sad :(
Thank you Shruthi :). Ohh :(.. People are idiots sometimes or big bums. I really don’t understand the expectation or over expectation of people and somehow they never seem to appreciate the effort either. And I agree, guitar does take a lot from you. Actually even I tried the guitar and gave up pretty soon actually. I didn’t give people an opportunity though, I just gave up on it soon. Probably I wasn’t really that passionate about it..
Wonderful article. I would say though it’s who we are that needs attention but it’s the voices that are around us that clouts are judgement. It’s the people with who we live in the society who understand only the language of achievements and hence in this chaos we are unable to find our true “self”. :)
Thank you Gaurab :). Very well put Gaurab, the voices around us which sit and judge need to be shut down, muted and even chastised if need be. No one gets to make fun of someone on pursuit, it is downright cruel !
Rightly said an Expert in anything was also a beginner once. I love the Edison quote, never heard it before :)…fear has always inhibited me from learning to swim…I attempted twice to learn but for some reason I just don’t get the science behind buoyancy But with every attempt the yearning diminishes :( I know I will try again for sure…just sad about the money that I keep paying every time :D
Thank you Vidhya :). I love the Edison quote, it always makes me feel very humble and down to earth.
He he, good luck with the swimming though. I would strongly suggest a floating pad :). He he, I agree, everything comes with a learning cost indeed ;)
Great post Vinay. Though I don’t still know how to drive a card or even a bike as well, but I know the day I will determine that I will have to drive them I will definitely learn them. Second thing as you said that repeated screw ups don’t make you an idiot is actually very true and we should always understand and remind it.
Why am I saying this is because that such situations can even come to your life in many situations, at your workplace, at your personal life, and anywhere, people might try to screw up your days, your work, or whatever, but then if you know this that repeated screw ups won’t make you an idiot, you will easily survive all this hullabaloo.
Thank you Alok :). Oh really? Then how do you manage with the travel?
True Alok, I think lot of people have a strong misconception about failure and they keep feeling bad about it. It is like getting sucked into a vortex and they keep feeling bad about themselves without looking for any solution. Sometimes I feel it is simple enough to acknowledge what happens and accept it instead of struggling in denial!
Bang on Alok, that makes life so much more easier and accomplished. It is like casting the shadow of worry away for ease and comfort of life.
I usually prefer public transport, and in Delhi we had the options of Metro and AC buses which makes travel easier for us. I always do believe that I will purchase the car once I have my own house with a parking space, and hopefully God is going to complete this wish of mine soon.
There is absolutely no point in feeling bad about any failures, I do understand that it feels too bad, sometimes I too become sad for this, but then you should take lesson from these incidences in your life and go ahead.
Oh yea the Delhi Metros! That can get you anywhere. It takes me back to 2010 where I stayed a year there. I loved the Metro and how beautifully they have maintained it. That and of course food :) . Wishing you the very best for that Alok, may the dream come true soon.
True I agree, it is sorta self defeating a purpose to feel bad about a failure. There is more honor in a fight than feeling bad about an incident :)
Yes buddy, I always prefer to have home (on rent only) in nearby metro stations, so that there should be no worry for traveling anywhere. Fortunately I looked for the same for my own house as well.
Thanks for your wises. Will surely share the same (when my dream will come true) soon on I News India.
That actually makes sense Alok, convenient as well. And I really like the Delhi metros, they have made the network quite well.
Fingers crossed Alok, hope they come real soon, I would love to visit for the house warming ceremony :)
hmmm very true, I remembered my days wen in 30’s I learnt how to drive a car & got my DL after failures :-D :-D its diff routine here for obtaining DL. still keep swimming keep swimming LOL. Ty for sharing such inspirational post. Good Wishes.
He he.. try and try till you die or atleast kill someone right? ;)..
I think a lot has been talked about failures in life and everybody has a lot of takes on it. Sometimes I just feel that we should keep it simple enough and say – So what! Big Deal!