What you actually need
It may not be what you think...
My adult student was mad at me.
I tell my piano students to count out loud when they play scales, and he didn’t want to. When he played his C-scale without counting, he could do it perfectly. When I made him count out loud, he messed up.
He refused to do it the hard way.
“Look,” I said. “Do you know your alphabet? Can you say it?”
“Yes,” he replied.
“Could you say it starting from M?”
That was a little harder. He could do it, but he had to think a little bit.
Reciting the alphabet from start to finish is fine until you have to fish out one letter from the middle. It’s the difference between what a 3-year-old can do and an adult can do. What you really want is to know the alphabet inside and out, to integrate it, so that you have access to any letter at any time.
“That’s what you’re getting when you count with scales,” I said. “Yes, it makes you mess up, but it makes you mess up in the places you’re not clear about the scale. When you count, you get intimate with the scale…you know it inside and out.
Then I hit him with the important fact!
“You think this is about your ability to play the scale. For who? Nobody cares if you can play the scale perfectly. There’s nobody out there watching you, applauding when you get it right. Learning to play the scale perfectly does nothing for you.
“But if you go through the process of counting with the scale, so that you know it inside and out, you own it. Getting to that point means something changed in your mind, to your ability to focus. You got better at focusing, paying attention. That’s what you want, that mental skill. That’s valuable.”
***
I was mad at myself.
After learning Italian for seven years I still couldn’t speak or understand it.
I took a language coaching from a friend and she told me to start listening to the same podcasts again and again, and to speak along with them sometimes. I heard that idea from other sources, too. Just bury yourself in Italian and let your brain swim in it.
“No!” I thought. “That’s not going to work. I need to be learning a bunch of individual Italian words on flashcards so that I can understand them when I hear them.”
I resisted and resisted until it became plain to me that my way wasn’t working. So I did as I was told, and things started to change. I began to be able to understand a lot more, and could speak easier.
It was only once I had some success that I realized my error. I thought what I needed was the ability to translate words. That wasn’t what I actually needed.
What I actually needed was the ability to remain calm as words flowed around me, so that my brain could capture them and reform them into concepts I could understand. My brain didn’t need to translate most of what I was hearing. It wanted to do the exact same thing it does when I listen to English: pinpoint the key words, gather all the sounds and ferret out the concepts, paint a picture in my head.
The skill I actually needed was to find that place in my brain where I am calm enough to manage my fear, and focused enough to pay attention. It’s a sweet spot, a moving target depending on the material and the day. Getting better at finding that sweet spot in my mind is the skill I need.
***
Are you mad because you’re still afraid?
Is your fear keeping you from doing something you really want to do? Maybe something you need to do.
Do you think that your task is to conquer that fear? To make it go away, see that it’s silly, feel great about whatever it is that terrifies you?
Listen carefully. That’s not what you actually need.
The skill you really need is the ability to live inside that fear and do what you need to do.
As a pianist, I deal with various degrees of stage fright. It varies depending on the piece, the venue and the day. Some days I’m more afraid, some days less. My task is to manage the fear at whatever level it manifests so that I can accomplish the task at hand. Do I prefer having no fear? Yes, that’s more fun. But that part isn’t really up to me.
Learn to do the part that is up to you:
The part that can focus on the task at hand. The part that decides either to compartmentalize, or to use the fear you’re feeling. Both are good strategies, and knowing which, or how much of each, to do is the skill you need.
I can help you learn this skill, because that’s what I love. I get to be the voice that exists outside of your drama, the one that’s reminding you of what you actually need to do, what you want, what success means.
When one of us takes the next step, we all feel inspired. Please share your fear story with me at adam@acole.net. Or put your story in the comments for everyone to see!