When we go to do something for the first time (as adults) and we don’t get it right straight away, how many of us react with our inner voice telling us that we’re: “a stupid, silly fool”, “a useless incompetent”, “can’t do anything right”. And so on an so forth. What is worse is we even often feel angry at ourselves for being so annoyed with ourselves and then start giving out to ourselves all over again. Verbally we are punching and kicking ourselves.

Exhausting….isn’t it?

Now picture a baby who is just starting to walk, s/he has been wobbly on those legs for a few days when standing upright and not holding onto anything and you just know that s/he is itching to take those first steps. Breaths are held in anticipation and the foot is lifted, hips seem to involuntary gyrate a little bit and you want to reach out, to be there, to catch her/him if s/he falls. But the foot moves forward and lands safely and infant is still upright and lifting the other foot for a second attempt.

Instinctively as parents, or older siblings we encourage said infant with high pitched voices of “Good girl/boy”, “come on, one more step”, “come to Mammy/Daddy”, “that’s it”. “Grrrreat girl/boy”. Then infant flops down into Mammy/Daddy’s arms or onto the floor on it’s backside and we give loads of hugs and kisses and praise.

Not once do we say: “Well that’s it, s/he is NEVER going to walk”, “what a loser, silly little fool didn’t get it right first time”.Instead we encourage, we allow for the fact that that baby is only learning &will need time to adjust to this new concept. If you heard someone talking to a baby in the manner up above, most of you would be inclined to call Social Services and report child abuse.

Who is going to report you for self-abuse? When we’re learning a new subject, be it work or hobby related we somehow expect our adult self to be super-human and instantly absorb and adapt to our new environment and when we don’t we tend to use the language in the first paragraph. We are verbally kicking & punching ourselves when we are down and the only purpose of it is to make ourselves feel worse, so we get annoyed and the cycle goes on. Then we get to the stage where we don’t want to turn our hand to anything new, because we “know” already that we won’t be able to do it.

Instead treat yourself like a small baby when you are learning something new. Each step you take reward yourself – even if to say, “I’ve done it!” It doesn’t matter if it isn’t perfect, you’re only learning and guess what Yes, you’ve done it, now go back and do it again, and this time improve on it slightly, and the time after that, improve it slightly more, etc. etc.

Before you realise, you’ll be like the baby, running everywhere, exploring new territorities that you couldn’t explore before you got onto your feet and started walking – one baby step at a time