Jan 4, 2013

Just Do It (Or Make It, As The Case May Be)

How many times has someone said to you, "I've always wanted to learn to sew," and what is your reply?

a) You should! It's so rewarding.

b) I know a great class at _________.

c) I can teach you.

d) Forget it, you don't have the patience.

(Sorta kidding on that last one).

And how many times has someone told you about the (usually better than yours) sewing machine they have stashed away in a closet (and that they have never used)?

If you're like me, I'm guessing many.

My mom once said to me, "I've always wanted to learn how to canoe." My mom lives on an island in the Pacific Ocean — where the weather is pretty temperate most of the year. Oh, and in Canada, where Parks and Recreation programming is so cheap it's a sin not to sign up for something. She could probably go canoeing seven days a week for about 10 months of the year. So why hasn't she?

And why haven't those people we all know just dropped a damn bobbin into their (better than ours!) sewing machines and started stitching?

Lack of time is a reasonable excuse for only so long. So is access to knowledge: I can tell you where to get free patterns and online tutorials, and that there's no shame in practicing on old bedsheets.

It's the same reason I put off learning an instrument, taking up a sport, or attempting to make bread again: fear of failure.

When it comes to sewing, there's the fear that whatever you make will be so horribly botched, it will resemble Denise Huxtable's "Gordon Gartrell" shirt. Or for canoeing, that you will fall into the water, embarrassing yourself in front of your (really, no more advanced than you) classmates (or drowning, I guess?).

In the past few years I've become pretty risk-averse — a side-effect, I think, of becoming a parent, as well as some minor PTSD following an attack in the park, and the fact I haven't had health insurance. But fear of losing life and limb — those are OK to cling to, in my mind. However, if the only danger of taking up a new task is bruising your ego a little, there's never going to be a better time than now to just go for it.

Over the holiday break while my husband was home, I should have been sewing. But I don't have any good fabric in my stash and our personal fiscal cliff is still on the horizon for the moment, so I took up a different project — something that I'd been thinking of for some time, but had put off out of fear of failure. It did involve some sewing — freestyle machine embroidery — as well as painting. And, because I'm prudent like that, I used an old bedsheet as my canvas.



Here's the photo that inspired me. I took this last summer while we were visiting my dad at his ultra-remote West Coast British Columbia home. It's probably the best photo I have ever shot. I love the colors, composition and pure joy on my kid's face. I've been wanting to do something with it since then:

 
This is not a humble brag, though I know it may look like it. I'm not actually that thrilled with my execution of this art project. But I hung it up anyway, and I'm sharing it here to show you that nothing bad actually happened when I attempted something new. I'm down one ripped bedsheet, a quarter-spool of thread, and a few small bottles of fabric paint. And the only person who has criticized my effort can't wipe her own butt (not naming names).


This is both my pep talk for today, and the crux of my New Year's resolution: don't let fear of failure get in the way of anything this year. If you've been wanting to start stitching, grab an old bedsheet and fire up the Google box to search for "how to thread a sewing machine." If you want to make art, turn off that part of your brain that says you can't draw. If you want to play guitar, don't worry about your roommates' judgement of your feeble strumming. Nobody is Jimi Hendrix (or Sandra Betzina) at first. You'll get better eventually.

Can you tell the outline is stitching?

This resolution is borne out of being a parent of a currently 4.5-year-old kid. At age 3 and 4, I witnessed her joyfully experimenting in all manner of hobby and activity — and with so much self-confidence. In her mind, she was an artist, an athlete and a musician (also, she mistakenly believes she can speak Spanish. Again: so much self-confidence1). It hadn't yet occurred to her that she would only excel in one field. I'm guessing most of us (aside from natural-born pessimists) start out this way — enjoying pretty much everything we try.

But already I can see the fear of failure creeping in. She'll walk away from a game if she's not winning, crumple up a drawing and have a tantrum if it's not exactly as she'd hoped it would be. And sometimes, she'll avoid an activity altogether if she suspects she won't be the best at it — even when her dad cheerfully says, "Everyone won, because everyone had fun!"

I don't think anyone or anything is to blame for this. It's natural; success feels so good, that we can begin to fear its opposite, even though the anticipation of failure is usually far worse than the actual act of losing. It's an exceptional person who can try something new without any fear of failure. It can be debilitating if we let it. I know it's something I'm still trying to shake (and the reason I never played sports or wear white after Labor Day).

One way to help my kid channel her fear of failure into something positive, I've decided, is to let her see me fail. More specifically: let her see me fail and NOT freak out about it. So that's my resolution this year: try more — and fail gracefully.

Any sewing (or other) new things you've been avoiding out of fear of failure? Name it and claim it! (Did I make that up? Or Oprah?)

22 comments:

  1. Great post, Suzanne! I am one of those fear-of-failure types, too. I have always wanted to try to paint something, but I haven't ever taken the time to. This shall be the year. I want to do a gallery on our TV wall, and I will definitely need to fill in with self-painted stuff while I slowly add some purchased art to what I already have. Great job on your first effort. I always like how resourceful you are!

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    1. Do it! The awesome thing about painting is that if you're not happy with something, you can just paint right over it! All mistakes are totally fixable!

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  2. Tears in my eyes and joy in my heart! Your words have captured exactly what I want for my five year old who, as your love, has only just begun to find that she doesn't do everything perfectly the first or five hundredth time.....that look of joy on your daughter's face is the look I love most on mine.

    A beautiful piece of art and a beautiful emotion behind it...thank you for sharing and inspiring me to give success a try! Happy new year!

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    1. That's so sweet of you to say. Would love to hear other parents' thoughts on how to help your kids avoid letting fear overcome them.

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  3. Great post and something I need to remind myself with regards to my sewing in 2013. I have such limited time to sew that I haven't progressed past beginning stage. However, if I'm honest, I know I don't force myself to sew because it is so disheartening to not like what you make after so much time spent. So I just don't do it at all. So lame! I'm choosing to approach it differently this year - even if I don't LOVE what I make, I'm sure I will learn something during the process that will help me love the next project.

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  4. There's Picasso quote that I think every art teacher in the world has on their website or something-- "All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." It's so true! The younger kids have undying enthusiasm and will try anything. Kindergarten is my favorite because they have NO FEAR. Then as they get older, that starts to fade. I usually see it about third grade. They no longer want to draw unless they are sure they are going to have success. I hate it and I try to stave it off as long as I can. Because I firmly believe that everyone can be an artist if they want to. And your painting/embroidery piece is amazing, by the way.

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    1. I heard Mo Willems (illustrator of the Pigeon books) on public radio once talking about we stop drawing once we decide we're no good at it. I can't remember exactly what he said, but he talked about having family drawing time, which I love. Kids need to see us creating art if we hope for them to push past their doubts

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  5. Really well said! There aren't many things worth doing that you can nail the first time you try, but we're so afraid of screwing up or looking dumb that most people don't even want to try anything new. Sometimes I wonder if I (and most people) have gotten out of the habit of doing things that are hard-- it's such a given when you're in school, but once you're out, you could probably spend your whole life not tackling anything tougher than the Sunday crossword.

    And, dude. I found out over Christmas that my sister got a BERNINA as an anniversary gift. She doesn't know how to sew! I *think* I was able to mask my rage/envy/disgust and come up with some sort of polite response to that announcement but... ugh!!

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    1. Just wait until you check in with her months from now and she still hasn't taken it out of the box....ugh!

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  6. "Try more — and fail gracefully" That is the life I want to live! I think I have so many regrets from the last few years because of the fear of failure. I wasn't like that when I was younger. It's time to take a cue from this post and the younger me. Thanks!

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  7. so beautiful! i love your painting. the story behind it is really special, too.

    i was thinking about how long it took me to get really good at sewing and how if other things took me that long to see results i don't think i would have stuck with it. it's not so much that i fear learning something new its just that i want to be good at it immediately. take learning an instrument for example. it took me a good year to play guitar along with a song without having to think really hard about my finger placement. i'm still not very good but i can't imagine sewing for a year without having anything to show for it. even if your stitches are sloppy and your cutting is wonky you can still whip out a usable tote bag in about an hour. you can paint something and still hang it on the wall whether or not it is good but you don't get that instant gratification out of learning an instrument. maybe that's what's kept me from trying to learn the trumpet which i've kind of always wanted to do. or maybe it's the fear of buying a bad trumpet, you know, failing before you even start!

    i love that you're setting an example for your daughter, it's about the experience not the result! have fun and try something new. if the worst you can do is fail then it's not so bad ;) thanks for reminding me of this lesson.

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    1. It's so true about guitar. I took lessons for a while, and even after much practising am still so crappy. I got my husband to set up his electric guitar in the living room so I can stick to a regime of playing 10 mins a day (baby steps!). I love music so much, it pains me that I don't make any of my own.

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  8. My cousins' grandfather used to say, "Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly." And people tend to disagree with me whenever I say that- But this post says exactly what I mean. Doing it poorly is better than not doing it at all. Just-doing-it is the first step. Bravo!

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    1. That is a great saying! You have to do it poorly before you can do it well.

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  9. Great post! Love the idea of failing gracefully, it's what we all need to do to learn. How many sews the perfect garment at once? Fear of failure might be part of the underlying reason I've often seen when people want to do something but don't´just do it: They want to know it, not learn it (sewing, playing an instrument etc). It might be written off as fear of failure, as failure is a given part of the learning process, but I think it's also a question of targeting your efforts. There's not eunough time and energy to learn all we want to know, so we have to make priorities. How much do I want it?

    One example is my talented sister, who sould like to sew, has made two skirts, but stated that it takes to long to learn it properly. She's done the same thing with much else, wanting to know how to do it, but unwilling to learn it. On the other hand, from an early age she wanted so write books. So all thorugh her teens she wrote, she read about it, she asked a great teacher she had to read and give citique. She knew how to kill her darlings before she was 20, and now at the age of 22 she's the youngest in her uni writing class (a two year program) and she's writing a novel that will hopefully get published. (I'm pretty proud of her =) )

    I think it's human to be a bit wary of failing, as you say, it's a natural feeling. Of course we shouldn't let it stop us from doing what we want! But I think it's also healthy to recognize that maybe we don't want everything bad eunough to dedicate time to it and it's good to focus on those fields where the end-reward is worth the process set-backs.

    Don't get me wrong, I understand your basic argument, and totally agrees with it! I for one would benefit from failing my sewing projects a bit more gracefully so I recognize a failure as a failure and move on to a new project that actually works. Sometimes a project just needs more work, sometimes it's a wasted effort and it's good to know how to accept that and move on. Without treating it like the end of the world =)

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    1. Of course, that's a great point. We only have the energy to focus on a few things at a time. But with any luck, life is long and we'll find time later to attempt those things we've always wanted to try.

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  10. I can see why you love the photo, it is just perfect. And your painted version is so gorgeous. (I also use old sheets a lot! they are great for muslins, interlining...)

    When i draw with my almost-3-year-old, she will sometimes say "i cant draw that, you do it for me" and it scares me that she is already scared to try some things for fear of failure. My mum is a teacher and she says it is always important to emphasize effort over talent, because kids learn pretty quick that talent is something you have, but the amount of effort you put in is up to you. The example she gives is that if you tell a child they are clever (or a talented artist, for example) they become scared to try. They want you to think they are clever or talented, and so wont give things a try in case they fail and lose that approval. She says you should focus on praising the specific behaviour that has led them to the end result, "you tried really hard, you concentrated well, great planning, etc etc". For me, it is an automatic response to tll her "you clever girl" but I am trying not to now!

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  11. Sue, just catching up on your blog. Love this. To failing happily in 2013.

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