David Covey and Stephan Mardyks’ book, Trap Tales: Outsmarting the 7 Hidden Obstacles to Success is a guide to avoiding the seven obstacles that ensnare people every day. The thing about traps is that we usually don’t realize we’ve fallen into one until we are in completely over our heads.
I had the opportunity to listen to an interview of David where he discussed a few of the traps that he and Stephan cover in their book. One of the traps that he discussed jumped out at me in particular.
The Learning Trap
We all know that there is no growth inside of our comfort zone. Growth only happens outside of it. In order to get outside of our comfort zone, we must stretch or learn something new. However, we are so afraid of making a mistake that we either don’t fully commit or we beat ourselves up over any little misstep.
The problem is that we spend so much energy trying to minimize the mistakes that we forget that mistakes are part of the process. And here is the trap. We are so focused on outcomes and results that we discount the process of learning.
Rarely do people get it right the first time. To be honest, getting it right the first time isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be. There is no real learning to be had if you nail it out of the gate. The value comes through the evaluation of mistakes and the adjustments that come from them.
If you have been following my posts for a while then you know that my daughter plays volleyball. She’s a freshman in high school and plays on the JV team for her school. This week the Varsity coach has had her scrimmaging with the Varsity team, which puts her with the upper classmen. These girls have been playing together for four years and know each other so well that they just instinctively understand where each person is going to be on the court at any given time.
Yesterday, our daughter came home from practice pretty discouraged. She said she keeps getting yelled at by the other girls for being in the way. She’s so discouraged that she doesn’t want to scrimmage with them anymore. She’s fallen into the Learning Trap. She wants so badly to minimize the mistakes so that they don’t yell at her that she’s not appreciating the process. The more she is in the way, the quicker she will understand where to go to get out of the way. She’ll begin to understand each girl’s natural zone and begin to develop those same instincts with them that they’ve developed with each other over the years. Making the mistakes and then correcting them will develop her instincts. Making the corrections will develop the Varsity girls’ trust in her as a player.
Not embracing the process will keep us from really learning, progressing, and succeeding. I see our lives as being broken into seasons. And for each of us, those seasons change. Our daughter is in her skill level where she is in this season of her life/volleyball “career”. Where she is now is not conducive to her volleyball dream of playing at a collegiate level. But she likely will be at a different level in the next season of her life/volleyball “career”- which could be much more conducive to achieving her volleyball dream. If she waits until the next season of her life to start getting prepared, she’ll never be ready when that time comes.
Falling into the Learning Trap keeps us from preparing for the next season of our life. We want to wait until all of the stars are aligned and we already are who we need to be in order to accomplish our dreams with as few mistakes as possible. If you wait for it to be perfect to get started, you will miss it. You will have missed the opportunity to be prepared. Don’t wait for the next season to get started. Start now and embrace the process. Embrace the mistakes and missteps and all that you will learn from them. The learning comes not from the outcome but from the journey.
Minerva Management Partners 