How to Become More Successful: The Rule of Thirds
Work hard and you’ll be successful, maybe. Hard work, dedication, and drive can carry you, but only so far. At some point you need more than just energy to excel, you need expertise, skill, you need to learn.
So grab a book and get to studying? Nope. The best learnings come from failure. Mistakes make us better. I recently wrote a blog about making mistakes on a project and how I overcame them. I learned through those mistakes and I corrected the errors on the next round. In the moment when I made those mistakes, and for the better part of the rest of the day, I felt inferior. I had a feeling of failure, that I wasn’t good enough. I asked myself, “Should I even be a woodworker if I can’t glue two boards together?”
It’s not a good feeling, but a necessary one. You have to feel that way to know you are pushing yourself. Trying something new means you will make mistakes. You’ll feel like you don’t know what you are doing and want to give up, but you have to push through. There is a fine line, if you push too hard you may give up completely.
That is where the rule of thirds comes in.
The rule of thirds means one third of the time you should feel great. I know I get that feeling after I finish a project and I find myself coming back to it to admire my work.
One third of the time you should feel adequate. You belong in the crowd. You are a woodworker, there are some better than you and some worse, but you belong in the club.
Then there’s the last. This is the hard one where you should feel like crap. Nothing is going your way. You hate what you are doing and want to give up. This is the challenge zone. It challenges your mental fortitude to continue. It challenges you to build a skill to overcome the challenge. When you are in this phase, remember, this is also the growth zone.
In an Inc. magazine article the author interviewed super achievers, such as Olympic runner Alexi Pappis who states, “if you feel roughly in those ratios, it means you are in fact chasing a dream.” If you are succeeding easily too often, you may be leaving potential on the table and not making progress you could.
Being perfect all the time is the enemy. It feels good to be perfect, but you aren’t growing, learning, or developing. You have to push yourself out of and into the learning zone.
It’s hard, I know. I like to be perfect. Compliment any woodworker on their work and they’ll tell you all the mistakes they made and point out the flaws. It’s hard not to see them. What we woodworkers don’t always see is what we learned, how we overcame, and how the imperfections make the piece perfect.
My first end grain cutting board. I learned a thing or two making this. Is it perfect? No, but in the end it turned out beautiful.
So next time you are struggling, frustrated, and feel like giving up, walk away, take a break, and reflect. Pull out your design and look at it, imagine the piece in your head and remember that you will make this project and are actively building a new skill that will get you across the finish line.