Doing is Learning – Grandpa Bob Encouraging Leadership

Is still progress.

Pick any project—it doesn’t matter if it’s something you’ve assigned to yourself or something your boss has given you. It could be a huge, long-term project, or something that should take less than a week.

Chances are, that project will turn out to be harder than expected. It will require effort that nobody saw during the planning process (whether planning consisted of a 5-minute conversation, or a multi-month series of meetings and discussions).

Here’s something else about projects: even when we’re given full ownership, most of us will try to find ways to make sure we’re not fully responsible for the outcome.

But no matter what, the project remains. We own it. We also own the goal of getting it done right.

“The man who moves a mountain begins by carrying away small stones.” – Chinese Proverb

Progress is made through consistent effort, one step at a time. Then another. Then another. It’s the steps toward the goal that matter, almost as much as the goal itself.

What if some of the steps we take are the wrong ones? What if we have to go back and redo some of our work? What if somebody sees us make mistakes along the way?

Each of these are (almost) guaranteed to happen.

Embrace it. Learn from it. Carry on.

Keep stepping forward. Learn along the way and give yourself permission to take a step (or two) back from time to time.

The progress you’re making is the reward.

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Surely, reading a book on pushups is the best way to learn how to do them.

The proper techniques. The most effective forms.

When should you do your pushups? How often each week?

While doing your pushups, what should your mind be doing?

What’s the proper number of pushups per set? How many sets should you do?

What are all the available variations of pushups?

Why should you do pushups in the first place?

Are there any risks associated with doing pushups? What about the rewards?

What if the author also provides weekly blog posts and podcasts about pushups…or YouTube videos of people doing pushups?

All of this is helpful. None will match what you learn by doing your first pushup.

That first one will be awkward. It’ll shock your system. It’ll be much harder than you imagined after seeing all those happy people doing them on YouTube.

Your technique will be terrible. Your body will scream in protest. Your wrists will ache, your shoulders will burn, you’ll probably feel muscles in your lower back you haven’t felt in a while.

Now that you’ve done that first one, what about the next ten? The next hundred? Will you make this a habit? Will you do pushups every day, every-other-day?

Maybe you’ll decide they’re too hard and just skip them altogether…

It’s the same with most things in life. Reading about it, talking about it, or watching it provide only one dimension of understanding.

Doing is an entirely different thing.

Doing brings the risk of failure, the risk of embarrassment.

Doing requires discipline and endurance for the journey you’ve chosen.

Doing requires personal drive and motivation to push through the awkward (and sometimes painful) beginning.

It’s easy to sit on the sidelines of life, casually watching and listening to what everyone else is doing. But, the most important choice each of us can make is the choice to step into the game.

Step in and do the thing you’ve been watching.

It’s the only way to truly learn.

Photo by Lopez Robin on Unsplash