The first time I swung a golf club, I missed the little white ball entirely (and the second time I made pretty solid contact with the big green ball - ouch!). Once I started hitting the golf ball reliably, it didn't go very far. Once I started to hit it a bit farther, it didn't go where I wanted. And once it started going more or less where I wanted, I couldn't figure out how to shape my shots. And so on. At each step, I was tempted to give up - unsure if I would ever be good enough to play with friends and colleagues (and frankly, I still am). But the truth is that I always could get better with some more practice.
Like golf, math takes practice. "I'm not good at math" is just code for "I don't want to practice anymore." And just like you can get muscle fatigue and reach a point where practicing is counterproductive, you can get brain fatigue as well. But if you give yourself a chance to recover and come back to it later, maybe try a different approach or work on a different skill, you will be able to get past it.
I think this video sends a pretty compelling "stick with it" message and I'd encourage anyone who thinks they don't have a brain for math to watch it:
No comments:
Post a Comment