I guess I am not really one of those people who can do it

How many times we have told ourselves, "I guess I am not one of those people who can learn to code? or learn to play guitar? or learn how to network? It's easier, isn't it? To think that it was something beyond our capabilities? In other words, we find solace in the fact that we couldn't do it or learn it because we just don't have it in us. Hundreds, if not thousands of people around the world are doing the thing that you want to do. Is every one of them have an IQ of 150+? Highly unlikely. But still, they were able to learn it and thrive. Why? I don't have an answer for that. I recently came across a post from a software developer named Marcus Geduld who quite beautifully described his journey and shared some insights. This is my attempt to share what I understood from his words.

• Saying " I'm just one of those people" lets you off the hook. We tell ourselves that there is some external factor that is responsible for us not being able to do something that we want to and that relieves us from taking responsibility. By saying this we remove ourselves from the guilt that we might otherwise have had because of failure to learn. Geduld says, "To move forward, you have to refuse to let yourself off the hook.

• Next, we need to understand we have any emotional blocks that are preventing us from the task. "If I can't learn this, I will not be able to get a job I want." "If I can't learn this, I will get fired." "If I can't learn this, that will prove that I'm stupid," etc. Emotional blocks are a different ball game altogether, but it helps to realize if we have any such blocks because understanding and realizing it is the first step towards resolving it. These blocks can also be unrelated to the task we want to achieve. If we are struggling to pay rent every month, pay our bills or put food on our tables, we can hardly focus on anything else.

• Emotional stress can be a detriment to the focus that we need to work on ourselves. There is no easy way to fight it since every person has a different way of dealing with issues. However, there is a process you can follow if you want to. Take your time if you are going through something. Acknowledge that it is happening or happened, and you must deal with it. Grieve, lash out, do what makes you feel good for the moment. But after that, accept it and carry on with your tasks. Try to get into your previous schedule to get a sense of your old life. Everything else will fall in place in time. We need to resolve these problems, if any, before proceeding.

• The next significant thing is preparation. If we have learned arithmetic, then only we can move to algebra. The point is, we can understand more complex things if we understand the basic things that lead up to those complex concepts. If we jump one step ahead then we have constantly look back at the previous step for hints because we haven't mastered it. And without mastering the earlier step, learning the advanced step becomes that much harder. This will make your current task seem more difficult than it is and ultimately makes you lose interest. That increases the chances of us abandoning learning it.

• “With learning, there are no shortcuts. You either learn -- REALLY learn -- or you don’t.”, says Geduld. “Sort of” understanding the fundamentals and jumping ahead is no way to make progress. If we “sort of “understand something, then the only thing that is preventing us from being a master or comfortable with the concept in practice. And practice requires patience. Hours and days or months of patience.

• When we see a guitarist moving his fingers on the guitar so seamlessly and producing such amazing sound, we also need to see that to reach that point of comfort with a guitar, how many hours of practice it could have taken. Taking my example, at one point in my life, I wanted to be in a band, play like Cliff Burton of Metallica, may God rest his soul. I saw him in live shows, playing all those bass riffs in front of thousands. But what I did not see was his struggle. The struggle of practicing to reach that level of mastery. The struggle of fitting in a band together. Long jamming sessions. Brainstorming for new music and creative ideas. I just wanted to be on that stage without the underlying rigor. That rarely happens. So, we must put in our time. Grind our way through the practice with patience.

• After dealing with all the above, we reach the final obstacle of optimism bias. When we think that something bad is not going to happen to us, it is a bias. Optimism bias is an often-mistaken belief that the chances of something negative happening to us is less than that of something positive and that leads to poor decision making. If something is hard, chances are that we will fail at it the first time. Maybe the second time too. Even, the third time might not be the charm for many. But maybe the fourth or sixth or tenth attempt might do the job. You could do it on your first attempt too.

• If we are failing at something, we need to course-correct like a ship does when it is on the wrong path. We need to get feedback on our attempts. What did we do wrong, what did we do right, what could have been done slightly differently to get a different result? For example, while playing guitar if we are failing at achieving the desired accuracy while playing a certain song, then we need to realize what path we are taking to play that song. If one way is not working for us then is there a different way to get that accuracy, to get a better sound? The idea is, we need to take a break and approach the problem, with a fresh mind, with a different source of learning for subsequent attempts.

This is certainly not an exhaustive list of obstacles but many a time our hurdles are a manifestation of these major roadblocks. There could be a lot of restraints in many different forms that prevent us from learning something. Your situation and my situation could be worlds apart. But we should not succumb to say, " I guess I am one of those people" before attempting to do it in a planned manner enough times. Not with a few attempts. Enough attempts so that if we for some reason are unable to learn it, we can say that "I tried my best."