Getting Good at Doing Things Badly

A former gifted kid learns to embrace failure

A former gifted kid learns to embrace failure

An exhausted-looking person, leaning over a barbell. Photo: Jesper Aggergaard/Unsplash

Recently, my partner and I were looking at astrology memes on Instagram. Examining social media stereotypes of our respective signs remains one of our primary methods of introspecting as a couple. We’d just finished roasting him for being a Pisces, and had moved on to examining the traits that supposedly befit me, an Aries. One of the first traits listed was “competitive.”

I scoffed. “I’m not competitive.”

He shot me a look.

“What?” I said. “I’m not. I’m not competitive. Unless I’m sure I’m going to win.”

My partner squinted and pursed his lips, a surefire signal that I was about to be called on my bullshit.

“Only being competitive when you think you’re going to win is competitive,” he said. “That’s just about the most competitive thing you could say.”

“What? No it’s not,” I protested. “I’m like the least competitive person in the world.”

That, of course, was also a very competitive-sounding declaration. By then I knew I’d lost the argument.

Now, if the issue is raised, I will concede that I am competitive, but that I’m also very fragile — I hate failing at things. I don’t like playing games I might lose. If I’m not instantly talented at a skill, I find it immensely threatening.

But I’m working on that.

Like a lot of former “gifted kids,” I grew up being praised for how intelligent I was. I got screened for gifted education in first grade because I’d nonchalantly used the word “territorial” to describe a cat. I got assessed, and my verbal intelligence was incredibly high. My analytical abilities were mildly above average, too, so over to gifted education I went.

In gifted education, we kids were frequently told how much potential we had, and the ways in which we were different from other kids. This helped to inflate our egos but it didn’t teach us perseverance. Research shows that praising kids for “being smart” is far worse for their development than praising them for working hard. It’s much better to teach a kid that success comes to those who persist, rather than to those who find it on the first try.

But this was the 1990s, and our teachers and parents didn’t know any of that. So they kept telling us we were special, and that we were each destined to become something great. It was a lot of pressure.

There’s a strange paradox to being a “gifted” kid — you’re told that you are superior to other people, but you’re also subtly pressured to see your intelligence as a public resource. You’re told, in so many ways, that your smarts should benefit society, that you owe the world greatness. There was very little discussion of what any of us wanted, or what was good for us.

At the same time that I was enrolled in gifted education, I was also put into special education gym class. I’d always been incredibly weak and incredibly uncoordinated — likely an effect of the Autism-spectrum traits that run in my family. As I got older, it became more and more clear that I was far behind my peers in terms of physical ability, and that I wasn’t ever going to catch up on my own. So off to special ed gym I went.

Everything I had been taught about talent had suggested you were either naturally good at something, or you might as well give up — so I just gave up.

There, I did wall push-ups and weak crunches that never developed into real sit-ups, and tried to catch a falling yardstick as it was dropped between my hands. These were supposedly simple tasks, designed to suit kids with slower-than-average reaction times and underdeveloped muscles. But I found even these activities challenging. More often than not, the yardstick would pass me completely, clattering to the ground before my hands even started moving.

My gym teacher didn’t help matters. In my experience at least, gym teachers are not prepared to deal with kids like me who completely suck at physical activity no matter what we do. I would fumble through activity after activity only to be met with condescension and questioning. “Come on, you can do it! No, not like that. No. You put your foot here. See? Like me? Don’t you see? Come on!”

I couldn’t see. I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t naturally skilled at any of this stuff, and no one around me knew how to break it down in a way that was approachable. Everything I had been taught about talent had suggested you were either naturally good at something, or you might as well give up — so I just gave up.

And I kept giving up. For like, decades.

I gave up trying in orchestra class, because there were several cello players clearly more talented than me. I didn’t take Spanish class seriously, because I found it emotionally threatening to not be able to communicate as well as I could in English. When I struggled in chemistry, I gave up on my dream of becoming a bat biologist because clearly I wasn’t naturally “good” at science.

And those are just the things I gave up on in high school. As an adult, there have been myriad other examples — fitness classes canceled, group therapy sessions abandoned, dance hall meltdowns, challenging video games left unplayed. I hate being bad at things so I just don’t do them. Life is a competition and I need to win — so why would I waste my time on anything I’m bad at?

For years, I devoted my life only to the things that came naturally to me. Writing. Teaching. Research. Making money. Saving money. Covering myself in a protective armor of invulnerability. I accomplished a lot but my life was tiny.

Recently, this has begun to change. I’ve started venturing into unfamiliar environments, started slowly plodding my way through difficult things, building up new skills along the way — and I’ve even started to enjoy it.

I’m not sure what sparked this change. Therapy has helped. I think I’ve also finally just gotten sick of my own defensiveness and all the opportunities that it cost me. I want my world to be large so I’ve started learning how to suck at things. Here are the steps that have helped me so far:

1. Try something completely new

About two months ago, I started lifting weights. I’d never even tried to lift weights before that. I’d internalized the condescending treatment I’d gotten in gym class so deeply that I thought strength training would just never be possible for me. It was too scary. It was a game I could never, ever win.

But my apartment has a private gym on the top floor, and it’s often empty. It offers beautiful views of Lake Michigan, and being there feels comfortable. I decided to follow Terry Crews’ advice for people new to exercise: I would treat the gym like a spa. I’d just go there, try a few things out, listen to some music, and think of it as pampering myself.

It’s funny, but it turned out lifting weights was kind of fun. It hurt in a pleasant way, like getting a massage. Studying each machine and learning how to use it was oddly stimulating, like solving a puzzle with my body. Every time I figured it out, I was shocked at how much my body could do. I wasn’t strong, I wasn’t naturally talented at it — but I could do it, and better than I expected. It was rewarding and fun. So I kept going.

2. Stop ‘comparing upward’

Normally when I try something new, I immediately fall into the trap of comparing myself to more talented people. In a dance class, I’ll look to the most graceful person in the room. When playing Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) with my friends, I’ll immediately identify the most talented and funny storyteller. In this way, I transform other people into sticks to beat myself up with.

I tend to assume that these more skillful people are just “naturally” better than me, forgetting that they’ve probably devoted hours and hours to practicing their craft. By seeing more talented people as innately different from me, I was making it harder to keep persisting and get better on my own. Research shows that when you’re new to a skill, it can be super demotivating to engage in “upward comparisons” (comparing yourself to people who are “above” you in some way).

Most of us are tempted to use other people as benchmarks of our own success, but doing so doesn’t really make sense — their circumstances are completely different from our own. Instead, we have to detach from monitoring how others are doing and focus on ourselves. Am I trying my best? What do I have to be proud of today? What do I bring to the table that is completely unique?

No matter how “bad” I am at something, I can almost always find something that makes my attempts unique and special. Maybe I’m not the most graceful dancer but I have a bouncy, joyful quality to my movement that is infectious. Maybe I’m not the most sharp-witted player at the D&D table, but I know how to ask thoughtful questions that inspire my fellow players to try new things. I don’t have to be the best at everything— I just have to be me.

3. Compete with yourself

My partner was right: I do have a competitive streak. I want to feel powerful and victorious. But I also want to stop being so defensive. I want to be able to grow. So these days, I try to compete with myself instead of with other people.

I don’t have to be naturally good at something in order to enjoy it. I just have to keep trying.

Weight lifting is a great arena for developing this mindset. As my friend Jessie recently observed on her podcast Fat Chat, lifting weights is all about competing with your past self. There might be other people in the gym at the same time as you, but they’re on a completely different workout plan, doing different exercises at their own unique pace. You couldn’t really compete with them even if you wanted to. But you can compare your past strength to your present strength.

Lifting weights really pays measurable dividends. I can do planks for longer now than I could two months ago. Kettlebell swings are getting so easy with my 10 pound bell that I had to order a 15 pound one in the mail. For the first time in my life, I can almost do a pushup. I can tell I’m going to get there soon.

I’m still really weak compared to almost every other adult I know. But I realize now that it doesn’t actually matter — what matters is that I keep showing up, working hard, and improving myself. Every time I add more weight to the leg curl machine, I feel like I’m the most badass, powerful human alive. I don’t have to be naturally good at something in order to enjoy it. I just have to keep trying.

If we want to grow, we have to be willing to fail. But it’s hard, in mainstream capitalist culture, to get comfy with the feeling of failure. Most of us have been taught that an activity is only worth doing if we are naturally good at it, and can earn money or praise by doing it well. But if we buy into that logic, we’ll be doomed to small, simple lives, filled only with repetitive devotion to our most easily-exploited skills.

I want a rich, complex life. I want to make visual art and music even though I’m bad at it. I want to play the sports I always avoided during gym class. I want to get comfortable fumbling my way through an unfamiliar tongue. I want to “waste” my time on all the things that don’t come easily, because I want to become as vibrant and resilient a person as I can be.

I’m still really bad at letting myself suck at things. Venturing into unfamiliar waters still sends me into a defensive panic. But that’s okay. I’ll keep at it. I know I’m going to get better at being bad at stuff.