The Myth of Know How?

“The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie, deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth – persistent, persuasive and unrealistic.”

- John F. Kennedy - 

When I speak with people about setting goals and creating what they want in the world, one of the major perceived obstacles is that they don't know how.  They don't know how to do it, how to get it, how to achieve it, or how to create it?  But the mistake isn't in not knowing how, it's thinking that you need to know how before you can get started.  Believing you need to know how, before you start something new is a myth.  I call it the Myth of Know How.

It doesn't matter if you want to have a better relationship with your spouse, or if you want to create work you love; not knowing how is not a useful reason for not pursuing something you want.

When you were a small child, did you know how to walk before you did it?  When you were learning to ride a bike, were you an expert before you ever got on the bike?  When you were first learning to drive a manual transmission, did you know how to do it before you put in hours of learning and practice?  No, it didn't stop any of us?  We just immersed ourselves in these pursuits because they were worthwhile to us.  It didn't matter that we had no idea how.  We were committed and that was what was really important.

We learn how by doing, by getting our hands dirty.  It takes time and practice to master skills and strategies.  There was some research done into how long on average it takes to master something; mastering meaning you are one of the top experts in a field.  They kept coming across the number 10,000 hours to mastery which was referenced in Malcolm Gladwell's book Outliers.  10,000 hours of practice broken up into 3 hours per day, equals approximately 10 years.  So let's dispel the myth right now, it takes a long time to learn how to do things really well.  We don't just wake up one day knowing how.

The people we see doing things masterfully didn't wake up one day suddenly spectacular, they almost certainly have put in their 10,000 hours already, or are well on their way. So, it's not a matter of can you do it, but are you inspired enough to want to make your life about learning how?  If you really want it, if it's a true authentic desire, if you are truly committed, then there is almost always a way to create what you want;

Sure, nobody really knows how the future is going to turn out; and nobody knows if something is possible or not before it is created; but the unknown, that's where possibility lives.  Nobody has every creating something truly great by stopping themselves simply because they didn't know how.  Thomas Edison attempted over 9,000 experiments before he got a light bulb to glow.  The Wright Brothers tried dozens of test models and crashed several times before having a successful manned flight.  You probably crashed and burned dozens of times when you were learning to walk, but none of that mattered.  It was all just feedback and experimentation.  What's really important is in all these examples they were committed, determined, and persistent, and that's what it takes.

So what do you want to make your life about?  What are you waiting for, go out there and get creating!  It doesn't matter how long it will take, or if you don't know how.  What matters is that it is a worthwhile pursuit for you.


Coaching Tip of the Week:

1. What do you want?  What have you been inspired to do, but you stopped yourself from moving forward because you didn't know how to do it?  
2. Ask yourself, if you knew you could actually have what you want, and you knew that it wouldn't make you any happier, would you want to spend your time and energy creating it?
3. Next, ask yourself, if you knew that knowing 'how to' was irrelevant, what is the very next action step you would take to move yourself forward toward creating your goal?
4. Finally, assuming you've identified this as a worthwhile pursuit for you for now, commit to it.  

Love and Light,

Coach Ty