What Is A Correct Skill?

I have often wondered if I am doing things correctly. The skills to do things in a correct way take practice. Too often we expect success immediately and get frustrated when it doesn’t come together.

Let me give you a recent example. I have helped demonstrate coopering at events for several years now. I usually get about three to five days a year showing people how to put buckets together. However, I am not really putting buckets together. I am really just making staves for buckets and doing a lot of explanation with some samples of partially assembled buckets.

With practice, my skill at getting the angles proper on the staves is now good, but as I recently focused on actually putting the staves together to make the buckets, I found that I was missing another skill that is essential to a high quality bucket. I was not tapering the staves correctly, so the diameter of the bottom was too small. I correctly applied one skill, but lacked another essential one.

Putting It Together

Since I did not get the tapering accurate, the angles did not matter. They were incorrect for the diameter of the bottom. This caused a lot of rework and troubleshooting resulting in more time spent per bucket, and poorer quality.

Why had I not noticed this earlier? Simply put, I focused on one aspect of the job to get it all right. In focusing on one thing, I missed the other critical part. I blinded myself to the flaw in the pieces because I allowed worry over an important skill to push out the recognition that other skills were important too. By recognizing there are many important facets to the process, I am creating better staves, and thus better buckets. New buckets fit together properly now.

Where Are You Too Focused?

Ask yourself this question. You may be tempted to say that you don’t know, but the truth is, you know. We tend to avoid admitting our flaws, and this is one type that we can often be quite stubborn about. Is your job the main focus that makes you blind to your children’s needs? Perhaps you worry about pleasing other people to the point that you fail to take care of yourself.

I remember worrying so much about my job that I was irritable and wanting to hide from my family when I got home. When I quit my job and started working from home, I realized how skewed I made my perspective.

My grandfather was such a perfectionist that he hurt relationships with his family when working on projects together. Though I learned a lot from him, I also avoided working with him for fear of his disapproval of my work.

Take some time to step back and assess your focus. See if you can find where you are skewing your vision. Correct the perspective and watch how things start coming together better. It is possible to adjust without losing momentum. You will find in a short time that you are moving faster than before, even if that means you occasionally slow down to refresh yourself.

Find the pieces of your life that you’ve neglected and add some focus there to start bringing the good things in your life together. It is worth the effort, even if it doesn’t seem so at the moment. Don’t accept your life as unchangeable. You are not defeated. Learn to Let Go of Defeat.