How to Do Anything

I recently received a fortune cookie that read “When you are comfortable, you can do anything.” I often get fortune cookie messages that feel like they were meant just for me, and this one was no exception.

It came on the heels of a weekend of concerts in which I performed with the Austin Civic Wind Ensemble. They were mostly fun concerts for me, but I always have a bit of angst at concerts because I’m still finding my footing in the world of instrumental music.

During this particular weekend, however, I noticed something. My comfort with my situation had a significant effect on how successful I was at playing my instrument. I didn’t quite believe my fortune’s claim that I could do anything when I was comfortable, but I knew that there was some truth in this pipsqueak-sized paper’s declaration.

I recalled some details from my experience: At the first concert, I was feeling “off.” This sensation was a combination of physical lethargy due to cold, rainy weather and a new concert venue that felt unsettling to me because of its unfamiliarity. At the second concert, however, I was feeling great because the stormy weather had cleared and the venue felt familiar after having interacted with it the previous evening.

The contrast between the two concerts was stark. When my comfort level was low, my performance suffered. When my comfort level was high, I found myself playing more competently than I had anticipated.

Hmm… that silly little fortune cookie was on to something! Though I still wasn’t convinced that being comfortable would enable me to do anything, I was willing to admit that being comfortable could take me a long way toward my goals and dreams.

My mind replayed another situation in which comfort was a part of my success. When I joined Toastmasters in 2015 to learn how to be a better speaker¹, my initial efforts were fraught with fear. Talk about being uncomfortable! ;)

There were times when I couldn’t string two coherent thoughts together — even when I had written notes right in front of me! Over time, however, my comfort grew and so did my competency with public speaking. Eventually, I got to the point where I could give a speech without any notes at all.

In another scenario, I remembered how awkward I felt when I started volunteering at a hospice facility. I had never been so close to dying people before. My emotions got the best of me, and I sometimes broke down from the enormity of the experience. In time, though, my difficult emotions settled down and these days I actually feel happy to be serving the dying.

I could see how being comfortable allowed me to be successful, but I still wanted to argue with my fortune cookie. Maybe my cookie was technically correct, but I felt that there should be some acknowledgement of how we get to the point of being comfortable.

I thought about what was common among my own experiences. How had I gotten comfortable enough that I was finally able to be successful in each of the three disparate situations that came to my mind?

The most obvious answer was that I kept doing the thing I wanted to achieve consistently and intentionally until my skills improved. It makes sense that I would be more comfortable when I was more competent. But there was something else that mattered. Something that potentially mattered more than anything else:

I had to be comfortable with NOT being competent for a time.

I was in my 50’s before I fully realized how important it is to feel comfortable with being terrible at something in order to get really good at it. I struggled for decades, never seeming to make significant progress or making it painfully slowly, until I finally embraced the sucky part of my journey.

Eureka! I finally figured out how I would change that fortune cookie’s message. I would add one word to make it more obviously useful:

“When you are comfortable failing, you can do anything.”

Thanks, little fortune cookie, for reminding me that success can only come when we embrace failure. :) The failures don’t have to be earth-shattering, but we must allow them — and perhaps even embrace them — when they arrive.

What do you want to achieve? Have you embraced the sucky part of your journey yet? If not, what do you need to do in order to be comfortable with failing?

Take some time this week to ponder how failure plays a role in your overall journey toward your dreams. If you’ve failed at something recently, rejoice! You’ve just made the first step toward achieving an “anything” that will bring you joy. :)

1. I should probably just say “speaker” here rather than “better speaker” since I didn’t really know much about public speaking when I started! :)