I recently read an article entitled “Plateau Busting: How to get your life to the next level” on one of my favorite blogs “The Art of Manliness”.  Brett & Kate McKay used a phrase that just stuck with me “Embrace Your Suck.” I often say anything worth doing is worth doing poorly when you first start. We can be our worse enemy. We know how we want to end, but to endure the sucky parts is tough.  We want it to come easy and without a lot of effort, yet it doesn’t.  We look at those who successful and think “they make it look so easy” – IT’S NOT.

How do you “Embrace the Suck”?

Change your identity.

I became a saxophonist the first time I blew a squeaky spit filled flat G on my instrument in 6th grade. I sucked but I started. I never “tried to learn” how to play the saxophone. I played and I wasn’t good when I started. Over the years I got better.  I don’t play often any more and I’ve lost some of my skills, but I’m still a saxophonist!  I’ve started writing my first book.  I enjoy writing and I think I’m decent at it, but I’ve accepted that the first book is going to suck. But the learning is invaluable and my second book will be better.

Know you are either progressing or regressing.

As you practice you are getting better. Don’t short change this period. When I started playing sax, not only was I learning to play the instrument I was learning to read music, keep a beat, play with others and be led by a conductor.  There’s a lot going on when you start to learn something new. You may not see daily improvement, but you’ll look back and recognize all that work has paid off.  The opposite is also true.  Have you ever gone to see one of your favorite singers from you child hood perform live only to be disappointed that they couldn’t hit those notes from 20 years ago.  Yet other artists, perform so effortlessly after decades of performances.

Stay Committed to Your Goal

Your life will be like and EKG with it’s ups & downs. If it’s a flat line, you’re dead.  Just because you hit a dry spell and stop progressing, doesn’t mean you made a wrong choice or you should quit. It’s about breaking through those barriers. It may take a while, but you will get there.

How do you embrace the suck in your life?

da Vincian Live Series Part 5

Taste – explore wine tasting or take cooking classes

Scent - study aroma therapy, with aisles dedicated to home fragrances you can try different ones to determine how they affect your moods.  Leonardo, made his own cologne.

Sight - Visit museums or gardens, learn to draw or take up watercolor painting, take up photography.

Hearing- begin listening to jazz or classical music. Learn the different eras of both genre’s of music.

Touch- This is a tough one, but you can make an effort to notice the feel of your clothing the next time you shop for new clothes. You have to make a concerted effort to notice the feelings you get when you touch something or the next time you get a message.

• Part 1: The da Vincian Life Series Overview
• Part 2: Becoming a Life Long Learner
• Part 3: How to Examine Ideas
• Part 4: Why we Should Embrace Uncertainty

da Vincian Life Series Part 4

Edward de Bono states that our minds tend to look for what’s familiar in any situation.  It is a safety mechanism we have. When we are in an unknown situation our mind works to quickly assess the situation. Leonardo da Vinci fought against this. He embraced the unknown, uncertainty and paradox.

Our country celebrated the anniversary of our Independence yesterday.  I love being an American.  But as an African-American,  the celebration also brings the greatest juxtaposition of feelings.  Our forefathers, chose to separate from Britain and create this great nation while leaving the abomination of slavery in place in the southern colonies.  If they attempted to force the southern colonies to end slavery and declare independence from Britain, the southern colonies would have separated from the northern colonies.  This would have given Britain a foothold in the soon to be United States.  Independence before emancipation. I get it.

Children think in terms of all good or all bad.  Maturity states we must understand the complexity of the human condition. Every person has strengths and weaknesses.  Great men we study in our history classes are often endued with weaknesses.  Life’s circumstances are the same. We must fight our natural tendency to judge a situation as good or bad.  It can be both.  This was da Vinci’s genius.  We are so fascinated with the Mona Lisa because of the ambiguity in the facial expression.

Embracing uncertainty: