RULE TO BREAK

“Always seek to improve yourself”

There’s improvement, and there’s flogging a dead horse. Certainly it’s in your interests and everyone else’s to be as good as you can at some things. Where strong positive values are concerned, of course it’s a good idea to be as kind, thoughtful, trustworthy, fair, honest, helpful, selfless as you can.

But when it comes to skills, it’s just silly to try to be good at everything. No one can manage that. There aren’t enough hours in the day. I remember my music teacher at school telling us all that we must always try to ‘improve ourselves’. And our various sports teachers. And our art teachers, and drama teachers, and all our other teachers.

The fact is that it’s enormously good for your confidence to work hard at something and feel yourself getting better all the time. Realizing that you’re evolving from a passable football player to a really good one, or from a decent singer to an excellent one is a great feeling. It’s worth some blood, sweat and tears to achieve that.

But we’re not all cut out to be brilliant footballers or angelic singers. Personally I couldn’t see the point of seeking ‘always to improve’ in music when I was tone deaf and clearly never going to be able to sing in tune. I have a rather good singing voice actually, but only if you don’t mind what notes you listen to. What would be the point in working away at something I could never excel in, when I could be putting that effort and time into something I did have a chance at? It’s actually very good for us to be weak at some things. It should teach us a bit of humility, and remind us to be grateful for those strengths we do have.

So whether it’s work or play, pick the things that matter to you, and that you have a chance of achieving, and work hard at those. I’ve never met anyone who was brilliant at everything, and I probably wouldn’t like them if I did. So let’s not bother to aim for that. Let’s recognize where we’re never going to succeed and stop trying. Not so we can sit around and stare into space, but so we can divert that time and energy to where it can be used more profitably.

One reason we can’t be good at everything is because some skills are simply not compatible with others. For example, there are two editors I often work with at my publishers. Sometimes, inevitably, there are disagreements among the team of accountants, sales people, marketing people and so on. When it comes to resolving these, one of my editors is a brilliant diplomat, and the other is terrific at making a stand for the things she believes are important, even if that means being blunt at times. These two sets of skills can both be extremely useful – but are incompatible with each other. The diplomat couldn’t possibly bring herself to be so outspoken. And if my outspoken editor was enough of a diplomat to worry all the time about other people’s agendas, she’d lose the ability to lay it on the line when that’s what is needed. If she sought ‘always to improve’ her diplomatic skills she’d have to abandon her existing strength.

So accepting our shortcomings isn’t an excuse to tell ourselves we’re rubbish and there’s no point trying. We all have strengths, and we owe it to ourselves to find out what they are and develop them. It’s just about being realistic.