Learning

Will you do it wrong until you get it right? What we have to learn we learn by doing. What we have to learn to do well we learn by doing over and over again. What we have to learn to be great at, we learn by not quitting and doing it over and over and over until we get it right and we own it. Doing anything without working knowledge can be disconcerting and have a tendency to discourage you from continuing. All of the training in the world cannot compare to the actual doing, because in the doing we get the experience and the experience teaches us how to do better. Practice and coaching are both very important and will save you from committing some fundamental mistakes but they cannot take the place of actual doing.

Consider the paratrooper. Paratroopers are trained for hours upon hours about what to do and when to do it before they make their first jump. But nothing teaches them more about their commitment than standing at the door of an airplane 3,000 feet in the air and stepping out into nothingness. If they are unprepared the results are fairly predictable. But even if they are fully prepared, the act of jumping out is a belief in the plan and the execution.

You should absolutely take the steps you have planned and be ready to make necessary changes if what you are doing is not achieving the desired results. Don' t jump too quickly by making changes before the plan has the opportunity to succeed, but if after a while if you are not learning by doing, perhaps it is time to change. What you must learn you must learn by doing. Will you do it wrong until you get it right?