Whenever we make up our mind to do something, we want to be good at it. Yes? No one sets out with the goal to be lackluster. No, we get excited about the new adventure. We dream about what it be like when we master the task and become, dare I say, proficient!
According to a leadership training seminar I was in a few years back a person in this stage is known as a Enthusiastic Beginner.
This person is all starry-eyed and full of visions of a successful venture into whatever they have chosen to do. They are excited. This is something they very much want to do. They're not thinking about all that it's going to take to accomplish their goals. They're not thinking about the challenges ahead. They are most likely aware that there will be challenges and even hard work ahead but they don't want to think in specifics. All they care about is taking that first step on the road to being successful.
It's only after they start and they hit that first bump that the road starts to look a lot longer and full of more potholes than they ever imagined. They start to realize that they are not going to be as good at this as they thought. This is going to take some real work and lot of time to become good.
This stage is known as the Disillusioned Learner. They have just enough of a taste of what the task entails and a better understanding of what it's going to take to get to the end where they are successful in whatever they set out to do.
Everyone of us has experienced this. In college I found this to be true when I decided to take up snowboarding. I went to school at the foot of the White Mountains of NH. I was 30 minutes or less from some of the best skiing in the Northeast. My friends, roommates, and even my boyfriend was doing it. I might as well give it a try.
I had visions of myself swooshing down the mountain, the wind blowing through... well, nothing I hate the cold so I was going to be bundled up pretty well. I was going to be able to engage in an activity that my friends were doing and loved and I would get to share this with them.
I think we all know where this is going... My first day out I ended up butt down in a hole off to the side of the trail. It was full of water and worse yet, my feet, both still firmly attached to the snowboard, were up over my head. Thank goodness I was 21, I spent the rest of that afternoon in the bar.
It was as my boyfriend's roommate was pulling me out of that hole (Think of a someone being stuffed in a trashcan with their feet and head sticking out of the top) I realized that it was not going to be as good at this as I thought I was going to be.
As I predicted it would, the same happened to me while I was writing.
I knew it was going to come. I think it was part of the reason why I put off writing for so long. I wasn't sure I was going to be good at it. I didn't know if I could actually do it. I hate not being good at things and I hate failing.... Seriously.
It happened two weeks ago. A moment I was looking forward to for some time had finally arrived. My two main characters, the focal point of my whole story, were going to be in the same place at the same time and actually, *gasp*, talk to each other!
I sat down knowing what I wanted to convey to the readers. I made them wait this long to get the two of them on the same page, literally. The problem was I didn't know from whose point of view I should be writing. This derailed me. I went into a bit of a tailspin. I couldn't concentrate. I ended up spending the most of my writing night on Facebook (lots of shoes to look at).
I finally picked a POV and just went with it. I think I picked the right one but I couldn't stay focused. I only ended up writing about 200 words that night when I had been averaging about 4 times that per writing night.
As I wrote my 200 words I realized something awful. This is the first time they are supposed to meet. It's supposed to be intense, its supposed to be sizzling, its supposed to be.... interesting. It was none of these things. It was reading like two people chatting at a bus stop, and this is NOT a bus stop!
After that, I was really demotivated. I found it hard to get back into writing. I even skipped my writing night last week. I know. One of the rules is even if you don't feel like writing you should just write anyway.
And to top all this off, I'm in a pretty bad reading slump so I couldn't get motivated that way either.
I found my motivation again when it occurred to me how I could fix my scene. While I was washing my hair of all places...
So I would like to introduce myself. Hi, my name is Jessica and I'm a disillusioned learning at writing.
I would add snowboarding too, but I think you actually have to be doing it to count yourself a learner.
I gave up on snowboarding. Ultimately I think it was because my heart just wasn't in it. I spent a year after that incident with the "puddle" trying to get better but I didn't get far. The very last time I ever went I was able to get off the chair lift without falling down. I figured what a way to go out!
I don't want to let writing follow down the snowboarding path. I actually care about becomimg good at this.
I keep reminding myself that I'm new at this and I should cut myself some slack. But I can't cut myself so much slack that I'm not doing it anymore either.
The only way I'm going to get better is with practice. A LOT of practice.
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