Embrace the Suck
An embarrassing thing happened to me yesterday. I was in a pub session in Dublin, one day before St. Patrick’s Day. The session leaders were obviously trying to keep the session moving and the tunes upbeat and fast-ish, because the pub was crowded. I was asked to start a tune and picked a set of hornpipes that I thought I knew well. For some reason, whether it was the crowds, the speed, or just having an off day, I muffed it: I made it through the first tune (barely) but couldn’t start the second one, so someone else picked a hornpipe and we continued on from there. That’s it: a momentary fumble, nobody died, and probably no one noticed but me. But heck, I should know better! I wrote a book! I should be able to follow my own advice! Chapter 138: Set Yourself Up for Success! Chapter 131: Playing with Distractions! Chapter 88, Play What You Know!
We’ve all done this kind of thing. I could spend days feeling cringey, deciding never to show my face in that session again. But it’s more useful to embrace the negative experience, embrace the “suck.” That way at least I can get something out of it.
Step 1: Redefine Your Mistake
What you perceive as a “screw up” or a “total fail” doesn’t have to stay in your mind that way. So first, find a more neutral way of thinking about what happened. There are results you wanted, and results you didn’t want. This was a result you didn’t want. Think of the results you don’t want as bringing you one step closer to the results you do want, because they give you the opportunity to learn.
The experience may have been embarrassing to you, but it’s very likely that if you were there when another person made that mistake you would be much more generous to them than you are to yourself. You would probably smile, and think, “Ah, it happens to everybody, no big deal.”
Step 2: Embrace Yourself
Being in a state of mind where you are upset, angry, or embarrassed with yourself is not helpful to your musical growth. I’ve written a lot about the way self-criticism can be self-destructive to our learning and progress. Yet self-criticism is such a pervasive attitude for most of us that, in order to break it down we have to take a very powerful stance on the opposite point of view: self-love.
If you’re going to try to unclasp the tenterhooks of self-criticism, be bold about it. Take the approach that you love yourself, and do it fully. Imagine the way you’d wish to be loved by someone else: a parent, a lover, a good friend. That means you love — not just forgive, but absolutely adore and want to kiss on the nose — every part of yourself, including the part that falls on your own face sometimes. Find joy in that. Laugh. Really physically laugh. In 10 years, will this matter? What will you be thinking about today? See how long you can hold onto that feeling of loving yourself. It’s pretty incredible, really. Fully embracing the idea that you love yourself can make you feel startlingly different.
This approach helped me take my cringeworthy experience and approach it neutrally as, “Here’s a thing that I don’t want to have happen again.” The solution to that is pretty simple. And it’s now totally off my mind.
PS: Funny, but my last post, Like a Sailor, was also about self-criticism. There is a theme here that I definitely need to address. I promise the next post will have a different subject…
Here are a few chapters in Best Practice where you’ll find more about dealing with self-criticism:
74 — Discernment vs. Criticism
31 — Just Keep Showing Up
154 — Personal, Pervasive, Permanent
157 — People Will Like My Playing
138 — Set Yourself Up for Success
131 — Playing with Distractions
88 — Play What You Know
Judy Minot is a musician, teacher, and the author of the book Best Practice: Inspiration and Ideas for Traditional Musicians.
Judy has played and practiced piano since she could reach the keys, training in classical playing until age 16. She now plays traditional music in various settings on a number of instruments, and gives workshops and classes on Best Practice ideas all over the U.S. and virtually.
Judy spent her working life in broadcast television and digital marketing. She holds a 4th degree black belt in the martial art of Kokikai Aikido and is a certified yoga teacher.
For more information visit: www.judyminot.com/bestpractice
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