Anything Worth Doing is Worth Doing Badly

Brought Brenda to the Bujinkan Taijutsu martial arts class I go to. Afterwards Brenda kept joking about how ridiculous she felt as it was her first ever martial arts class and she couldn’t get anything everything right.

I did my best to tell her this principle I first heard from NLP Comprehensive, and it applies to everyone who’s stretching:

Anything worth doing, is worth doing badly…at first.

When I was studying and had more free time I used to spend hours and hours at Borders bookstore reading whatever I found interesting. Being an animation student, one book I read was Chuck Amuck: The Life and Times of an Animated Cartoonist by Chuck Jones, a pioneer animator and director of the old Looney Tunes cartoons so many of us know and love. A story from that book made a deep impression on me, and even though I don’t remember it exactly, I want to share the gist of it with you.

When he was starting out, Chuck was told by a senior animator that everyone has about 10,000 (I don’t remember the exact number here) lousy drawings in them they need to get rid of, before they can really start drawing.’

According to Chuck he used that line to spur him onwards, sometimes drawing and re-drawing his work again and again just so he could get that one perfect drawing.

Whenever you do something new, you will most likely suck at it, or even fall flat on your face. Be prepared for it, it’s natural. Finding something difficult can be a sign that you’re learning something new, if it’s too easy it’s probably has elements of what you already know.

Are you ok with that? Are you ok with not doing so well at something first? Maybe even looking bad at it? If you are, remember that anything worth doing is worth doing badly…at first. And when there is learning, there is no failure.

9 Responses to “Fast and Effective Ways for Coping with Stress”

  1. Julie Melillo
    November 9 2008 at 5:50 am #

    I really enjoyed this post. It’s easy to forget how powerful our physical reactions are! I like your approach here. Especially reminding the reader that we are not always ready for change — though we think we are! I agree that the real failure is letting fear stop us. Thanks for posting this!

  2. karen parsons
    November 9 2008 at 6:46 pm #

    Hi Julie,

    Thank you for your kind words. I am glad it was helpful! “Coping with Stress” is a part of a series of articles on Stress that I have written, hopefully Life Coaches Blog will be posting the rest. So keep in touch!

    Kindest regards,

    Karen

  3. Jill R.
    November 10 2008 at 6:55 am #

    This is a great article. I especially like the list of symptoms… some of which a lot of people may not recognize as a sign of stress.

    It’s also important to continue with your stress managment activities even when there are no signs or symptoms of stress. Doing this will help you become stressed less often and ward off stress before it even begins.

  4. karen parsons
    November 10 2008 at 5:48 pm #

    Hi Jill,

    Absolutely, it should be a way of life! Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts.

    Kindest regards,

    Karen

  5. yvonne
    July 1 2009 at 10:36 pm #

    Hi,
    Great site!!!!! Good health is very important with the high cost of medical coverage. We need to have a healther lifestyle by taking care of our health eating and exercising. I am a cancer survivor and I know. Our health is our greatest asset. Keep up the Good Work!!!!!

  6. Rev. Dr. Bush
    January 16 2010 at 1:03 pm #

    The physical body does not differentiate between happy stress and overwhelm. Stress is stress. We need to develop coping mechanisms in our daily life to avoid the harmful, physiological effects of stress.

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