Learning to walk

We have met the enemy and it is us.
The comic strip Pogo
Walt Kelly
1913 – 1973

Some time ago, I was in the presence of a year-old child who was learning to walk. Watching a child going through this process can be fairly entertaining, since they have very little control at first. But they’re always eager to learn. She would take a few tentative steps and then either sit down or fall down. Everyone would clap, laugh and offer words of encouragement. When the child fell, someone would help her back to her feet and she would try again.

On another occasion, I happened to see a child learning to ride a bicycle. Again, it was interesting to watch. The bike wobbled down the street with a couple of adults offering encouragement and lending a hand every now and then to keep the bike and rider upright.

I started thinking about these two examples of learning new skills, and then I thought of how different things are for adults. We try a new skill, and if we don’t take to it right away, we give up. It’s rare to have anyone offering encouragement or support — not for very long, anyway. If we’re slow to master a skill, our instructors are all too quick to give up on us.

What would happen if we treated children who are learning to walk the way we treat adults trying to learn new skills? We’d have lots of adults crawling around, because they never would have learned to walk.

Why do we treat children differently than adults? Well, for one thing, we know that children will eventually learn to walk, so as parents, we make them stick with it until they succeed. But as adults, we’ve come to accept that it’s okay to quit after a little effort. When we undertake extremely difficult tasks, like starting a new business or learning a new job, we often give up after encountering minor difficulties.

How many times does a child fall before it can walk efficiently? Dozens, maybe even hundreds. But as adults, we often let the first obstacle stop us in our tracks and we abandon the effort altogether.

If you’re going to grow as an individual, you have to do new things and learn new skills. You can’t expect to start off on top. But that’s exactly what a lot of people think should happen.

The lesson here is to be like a child learning to walk. Accept that you’ll stumble a few times, maybe even many times. Recognize and accept that mastering any new process comes with bumps. Then get up and try again.

What this power is I cannot say; all I know is that it exists and it becomes available only when a man is in that state of mind in which he knows exactly what he wants and is fully determined not to quit until he finds it.
Alexander Graham Bell
1847 – 1922