James Clear: We all have goals that are important to us. But is it our drive to achieve a certain outcome that makes us better? Or something else entirely?
In the book Art & Fear, authors David Bayles and Ted Orland share a surprising story about a ceramics teacher. This story just might reframe the way you think about setting goals, making progress, and becoming better at the things that are important to you.
8 comments:
I love this article and in particular the example of the ceramic teacher who spilt his class into two groups: quality and quantity. I loved how he found the quantity group to produce a higher quality product than the quality gout. Repetition is key to becoming successful in any path of study. You can't expect to complete a task perfectly your first attempt, however you can learn from your repeated mistakes to become a stronger worker. Quantity over quality in this case is key to success. We need to learn from our mistakes and the only way this can be accomplished is through trial and error. Like James Clear says, "put in the reps."
This is so true and something I really need to work on and am currently working on. Everything takes practice! It's really hard to get the idea that "EVERYTHING MUST BE PERFECT!" out of your head. Especially when it was you who put it there and had basically branded it into your brain. I constantly tell myself, this has to be perfect! But honestly, like the article said, you need to do something multiple times so you can make mistakes and learn from them. It's really all about ego. There was an article from a while ago (or maybe it was something Joe Pino said) but perfectionist are just obsessed with their ego. You have to let your ego go, which is extremely hard to do because your ego can be the only thing that keeps you going, and just make the mistakes that you need to make in order to learn and grow!
(Oh, also, this is REBECCA LIU... I sign everything with Becki Liu)
Practice makes perfect seems to be the theme of this article. This article made me think of drawing class where we had to do blind contour drawings. The first drawing I did looked nothing like the figure I was drawing, even for blind contour. I thought that it would be impossible to improve the next drawing however, somehow I did. Each time I produced a new drawing I was noticing improvement which really proves repetition can dramatically sharpen any technical skill. This article could not be more true and should be understood by all artists in any field.
This is actually something I struggle with a lot- the idea that before you can be good at something you have to mess it up over and over. I really don't like failing at things, so I tend to gravitate to things that I'm already good at and I shy away from trying things I've never done before. I think everyone can agree that it's not fun to work really hard at something and fail just to gain experience. I know experience is a valuable thing, but it's not as fulfilling as being able to see a successful product. I think the best way around this is to find something that you enjoy the process of making as well as the final product. I know that I actually love making ceramics, which is coincidentally relevant to this article. When I was learning to throw pots, I just loved playing with the clay so much that failure didn't bother me, since it was just an opportunity to start a new one. I definitely improved much more by just playing around than I would have if I had worried about what the final product looks like.
This idea about not striving for perfection seems to be something that our teachers have really been trying to communicate to us this year. And I think its a very valuable belief, especially as arts student, but really for anyone. My dad always told me that art is not meant to be perfect, that is what machines are for. This is something that I've gone on telling myself since high school, but I also recognize that sometimes my expectations for my work may get in the way of the process. Aside from personal drive, part of being a student and knowing that you're going to get graded on your work can cause similar limitations. But over the course of this first semester I have become a lot more aware of this and have been working more on focussing on learning as I go and not worrying as much about grades or the final product.
Another aspect of this article that is really important is the emphasis on practicing your craft. Sometimes, we get caught up in the mentality of "I'll never be good enough at this or as talented as that person" so we just don't even bother trying. But if you let that get in way of practicing your skill, you're never going to create anything. You can sit around and judge the work of others or yourself, but instead you could be creating. And that is what we should be doing.
This may have been one of the most useful articles I have read. It is as simple as practice makes perfect but also goes beyond that to always trying your hardest. We don't generally just pick up a pencil and draw masterpieces it takes time and practice and redrawing over and over again. I myself am a victim of expecting to get the perfect results on the first try. Many Susan Tsu projects have forced me to keep re-doing different aspects to get it to the point of perfection I was striving for. This article will stay with me for a while.
This article was interesting because it expanded on a conversation that we had in PTM last semester. I think a lot of Type-A personalities that come to Carnegie Mellon try to do everything perfect. We get into such a rut of trying to do everything perfectly and we take on so much. It is important to take a step back and look at what is important and to distribute our efforts to the right places. I think the contents of this article can really help some of the students in the school of drama realize what is really important and how to make good work with out making it an ordeal.
This was a very timely article for me to read. Historically, I have tended towards being a "quality" worker, which, when I got frustrated and upset, became a "quality" worker without any work to show for it. I'm trying to change that behavioral pattern and focus on doing things imperfectly but completely. That has proven to be a much better strategy, and it turns out that even my imperfect work is acceptable. I particularly liked the advice about "putting in your reps." I can sometimes get so excited to plan a project/goal/assignment/whatever that I forget that the execution is the thing that actually matters.
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