How to fall and get back up again
why learning to recover from mistakes builds creative confidence
We’ve been watching the Olympic ice skating.
They must feel like they’re flying, soaring over the ice instead of merely skating. Meanwhile, we sit on our comfortable couch, peppermint tea within reach, and watch with awe as they glide back and forth, twirl, jump, pirouette, spin…and fall.
Falling, and then?
When they fall we scream and cover our eyes. But they’re usually up again, often with the next breath, and back into their routines as if nothing has happened. They know mistakes will happen, but they’re so skilled at recovery, at moving on. Falling isn’t failure at all, stopping is.
Reader, it’s been many years since I tried ice skating, and I know for a fact that were I to give it a go once more, I would spend as much time sprawled on the ice as moving across it.
But what I also know is that this ability to move on from a fall is exactly the same kind of thing I work on developing with my music students.
No, no one is falling down in my studio (apart from that one time I slid right off my chair and on to the floor), and while we do sometimes jump and twirl there is no ice involved.
We’re in the habit of making mistakes
But we are very much in the habit of making mistakes.
And I defy anyone to tell me that mistakes are not an inevitable and vital part of not just making music but also of being creative, no matter what it is you’re creating.
The trouble is we can fear them so much that it can become really difficult to recover when one does happen. The thought of them can also be a huge barrier to even getting started in the first place.
I see it in so many beginner adult students, their hands or voices shaking before they even play or sing their very first note, and I can imagine that voice in their head saying:
What if I get it wrong?
What if I can’t do it?
What if it sounds awful?
What if I can never learn to do it?
What if it’s true that I’m not creative even one tiny bit?
What if she laughs because I’m so useless?
What if?
What if?
What if?
Mistakes as possibility instead of failure
I can’t stop the voice, but what I can do is help them rethink how they respond to mistakes.
While we might do all we can to not make them in the first place, the reality is that they will continue to happen.
But if we can learn how to manage them, to move on and even see where they take us, then not only do we come to fear them less, but we might also be able see that they can be integral to the creative process. They’re always going to be unexpected and unwanted, sure, but can send us in directions we might never have thought of otherwise.
The shame is that we live in a society that increasingly prizes perfection and uniformity above all else, as if there is only one path to be taken and to step off it is to fail miserably.
And this fear of not keeping within the lines is an impediment to experimenting and exploring, to creating, to solving problems, and adapting to change.
We risk losing sight of the very essence of what makes us gloriously and bewilderingly and imperfectly human.
Perhaps creative confidence isn’t about avoiding mistakes at all, but about trusting that you can stand up again (and skate again) when they happen.