This morning in the shower I reprised, at the top of my voice, the Donovan songbook. I warbled my way through “Catch the Wind”, “Colours”, “Candy Man”, “Josie” and “Barabajagal”, and finished with a moving rendition of “Atlantis”. “Way down below the ocean – where I want to be, she may be…”

I was reminded of meeting Donovan some years ago, in Austin Texas, at SXSW. I approached him as he stood on a low dais after participating in a panel discussion. He hadn’t actually been listed among the panel participants, but he showed up, and who would deny him? I said hello and told him how big a fan I was and what a joy it was to meet him.

He stood there looking down at me, dapper as ever in his three-piece suit, unruly curls bobbing about. He held out his hand. “Help me down off this thing, would you?” I helped him down and we chatted for a while. I told him that the first song I learned to play on the guitar, at age 15, was “Catch the Wind”. He nodded and said he was really pleased to hear that.

What I didn’t mention was that my guitar-playing career began and ended with “Catch the Wind”. I worked really hard to learn it, but then I gave up. Other people were better than me and it seemed pointless. Shame, really – imagine how good I’d be by now, 40-mumble years later.

So, life went on, and instead of playing guitar myself I made a career of going out with a string of great guitar players. In the same way, I gave up on singing and languages – all things I loved, but things other people were better at, and things that would have required persistence. But I didn’t have any persistence, because I was ashamed of my perceived imperfection.

I shot myself in the foot because:

1. I wanted to be perfect immediately – I didn’t want to display any vulnerability or any process.
2. I didn’t know that what we see when we look at a public performance is the end result of years of private, sometimes agonizing, effort.
3. I didn’t know I could take tiny daily steps that would incrementally add up to something; I expected myself overnight to have the will and ability to practice for several hours a day, with no direction and no support (because I didn’t ask for any).
4. I did not use my natural curiosity to find out how other people did it – did they slog day by day? Or did they spring as fully-formed guitar players from the foreheads of their fathers? (Hint: probably not).
5. I was ashamed of not knowing how to do it. So, natural progression – I stopped doing anything I didn’t already know how to do.

I loved playing the guitar, but I gave up because, in my opinion, I wasn’t good enough, even though I was at exactly the stage everyone is at when they’re at that stage, and that stage is inevitable for everyone. If you know what I mean.
What I know now is that it’s helpful to aim for progress rather than perfection; that it’s okay to be a beginner, not to know how to do something, and to ask for help, and that the process in itself can be enough, can be joyful, can be satisfying.

I know that consistent daily action is what makes the difference; I allow myself to gradually improve with practice and commitment; I have learned to ease up on the shame, and allow myself to be vulnerable and compassionate towards myself; I see “failure” differently today – I see it as a rich and fruitful source of feedback for me, so I can make tiny adjustments, and continue to grow and learn.

Does this resonate with you? Are there things you loved to do in the past, but stopped because you weren’t “good enough”? Or things that, now, you won’t try because you don’t already know how to do them? When it’s put like that, it seems to profoundly self-defeating, doesn’t it? Take a moment, please, and think of something that you can redeem and pursue, for the sheer joy of the doing. Then consider one tiny step you might take towards it. Then, why not do it?

As for the guitar, I don’t fret about that any more. I still know the chords C, F, G, E minor and D7 – given a guitar, I could probably catch the wind, or, at the very least, a light breeze.