I've lost this game of Go because of something I didn't see. A simple error. But the mistake cost me 3/4th the board and almost all of my pieces. There's a saying that we are all fine when we make a mistake. It's when we realize we've made the mistake -- it's at that moment when we find out what we're made of.
Did you realize that our lives are made up of mistakes? They are defining moments. We can hang our head in shame, ears burning, embarrassed or we can get excited by them. What did we learn? How can I grow from this? It's an opportunity to make myself, this project, this choice, this day, my next game -- better. Yes, mistakes can be painful - how long we sit in the pain and how productive we choose to be afterwards is on us.
"I've never seen so many people, who after they're done working, beat themselves up so badly. They're frozen. If they make a mistake, it's the end of the world."
My friend, on his time away from his high level, high powered career job, is learning the craft of acting. He originally started in a stand up class, moved to improv and sketch comedy, then to Meisner, Suzuki/Viewpoints training, and now onto a Stanislavsky based scene class.
"You never get that in improv or sketch. Can you imagine? If everyone on stage in improv or sketch stopped the show because they made a mistake? " We laugh. We laugh because we know in improv or sketch the mistake is golden, it's what we build the scene around. It's what we heighten to build patterns and games and it's what often gets the laugh. But how come, in life, it's so hard to laugh when we make mistakes? How come, like the scene study class, we often beat ourselves up and treat it like it's the end of the world?
"How many of you, think that the Air Corp training, is the way to go? That you should take the best of the best pilots and you weed them out, and then take the best of them and then send them off on a course where other pilots have gotten killed in order to deliver the mail because you want to get government money to become the Air Force? How many of you think that type of training sounds right to you?"
There's a pause as he looks around. Almost everyone in the writing workshop has raised their hand.
"Well, you'd be wrong! They almost all died!"
The writing instructor, Corey Mandell, goes on to explain the example given in the book The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle. It turns out that a short guy who never even made it into the training program created this device to practice in. It had a red light that would go off every time you made a mistake. This device is what made the difference. It's this device that was the key to success. Not "talented" people who were the best of the best of the best.
"Mistakes are not an option for success. Mistakes are REQUIRED and NECESSARY for success," Corey passionately shares with us. The skills needed for success only happen when we make a mistake and start over again and try again and make a mistake and reassess and try again, and make a mistake....it's this cycle, painful as it might be, that causes us to learn, grow, and become successful.
In the book Mindset by Carol Dweck we learn about fixed mindsets and growth mindsets. Fixed mindsets experience shame and fear and self abasement during failures.
Growth mindset people experience determination, and excitement, and see failures as a puzzle to be solved. Their goal isn't often to become successful but they end up successful because of their desire to grow.
Fixed mindset people desire success but often aren't because their fear paralyzes them from moving on from growing and from learning so, ironically, they are stagnant. The "fail" at being successful.
Sound familiar? We're all a little of both. But we can choose how we approach mistakes. Are we going to be improvisers and sketch players who build around it and take a mistake and make it into something else and see mistakes as incredible gifts?
Or, are we going to be "serious" actors who beat themselves up, and tear themselves down, and freeze in fear of making a move when they realize they've made a mistake or just fear making one?
Mistakes will come and go. They're inevitable. To err or not to err. To miss take or not to miss take. Those are not the questions.
I look at the actors and the improvisers playing. As one who has a foot in each world, I can honestly say that it's the laughter that draws me, the joy, the sharing, and the celebration of mistakes that gives me coping mechanisms to push on. To see what's next. To go and go and go because if we stop, we may stop just before the miracle. And just like mistakes, miracles are inevitable too. And sometimes, just sometimes...they're the same thing.
No comments:
Post a Comment