“Don’t run before you can walk”

In other words, learn the basics and lay a solid groundwork before attempting the difficult.

This old adage has been thrown my way in many forms over the years. I have heard it from the mouths of teachers, it’s a lesson that’s been learnt through many historical failures, and nearly every show I watched growing up dedicated at least one episode to delivering this message. So, one would think that I would pay a slight bit of attention to these words.

Nope. And sadly, it’s now coming back to bite me.

I am currently finding myself in a bit of a predicament. I have some interests that I want to better develop, but in trying to do so, I am becoming increasingly aware of my deficiency in the foundational skills that I need. It is like I have two books of similar levels of difficulty, book A and book B. I have the ability to read book A, but when trying to read book B I struggle because I never fully grasped how the alphabet works. Which begs the question, how did I manage to get so far with book A?

The answer to this lies in my tendency to run before I can walk. For example, when I first taught myself guitar it was because I was doing a project in music and my group needed someone to play it. My dad had a guitar lying about the house, so I volunteered to learn how to play a few chords. I then found that I liked the instrument, but instead of taking time to build a well-rounded foundation, I raced ahead learning more chord progressions and picked up a few strumming patterns along the way. However, mastering a melody doesn’t make you a master of the instrument. This became apparent a few years down the line when I wanted to integrate scales and solos into my playing. Because of my eagerness to get off the starting line, the groundwork that I was building upon was not comprehensive enough to allow for substantial development in the new area. Consequently, I had to go back to the basics and develop skills that should have been there since day one. This was (and still is) a long and frustrating process, especially because of my awareness of my more advanced skill level. But it has to be done.

I’d like to say the guitar incident is an isolated case but, refusing to take time to walk seems to be a common theme in my life. I gain an interest and am able to pick up one area of it very quickly. So instead of investing time into establishing a broad base of competencies to work up from, I power forward with that area. This approach is fine if I only intend to use the skill for a particular activity, however, if I want to really master it and use it more broadly, I set myself up for future struggle. Part of the problem is that my haste to run doesn’t produce immediate repercussions, for a while, it looks successful. However, in the long run, it limits my potential. The only way to remove this handicap is to learn how to walk.

So, it seems that I’ve finally got the message. Better late than never, I guess. Honestly, I should make a series called “Ife finally coming to grasps with the facts of life after the world has been trying to drum them into her head for decades” or something with a slightly catchier title.

Sometimes you can learn from the teachings of others, whilst other times, you have to go through the agonising process of verifying the validity of their sayings for yourself. This was one of those times.