A couple months ago I purchased a set of electronic drums.  I had been a drummer in years gone by, but had to sell my drums because they were too loud and we had a baby on the way (…a baby that turned out to be much louder than my drums).   The great thing about electronic drums is that you can wear head phones when playing allowing you the ability to play any time of day or night without bothering people.  I soon found myself practising daily and have since turned into a pretty good drummer.   I was curious to why it seemed I was able to make such a significant improvement in my skills in such a short time on the electronic drums?  When I was younger, my playing never seemed to get better after the first year or two.

Thinking back to when I was playing my acoustic drums, I realized that I was very conscious of how loud they were.  I practiced with the knowledge that every beat was being broadcast through out the neighbourhood.   When I played poorly or made a mistake I was convince everyone in listening distance was evaluating and judging my performance.   Maybe even having mini meetings among themselves to discuss how bad of a drummer I was.  This motivated me to play only what I was good at and avoid anything that might be too tricky.  No mistakes.  No opportunity for the neighbours to breakout into mini meetings regarding my skills.  

A few things have changed since that time.  I’m a more confident individual, I understand that people aren’t thinking about me as much as I thought they were, and my drum playing is now safe and soundless in my private headphone world.   Consciously or unconsciously, I have taken the breaks off my playing and am trying new things and experimenting with new beats.   I have given myself permission to make mistakes all day long and no one knows except me.   The beats eventually get better and tighter over time.

Why is this important?  We often let the fear of making a mistake hold us back from making enormous gains in life.   When we lose the fear of making mistakes, we tend to be more relaxed, creative, adventures, and often experience our biggest growth.  Certainly there are areas in our lives that if we knew we could not fail we could make monumental changes.   We could overcome the major hurdles and issues in our life that have been holding us back.   A new freedom is acquired when energy is spent on trying new things and making improvements in your life instead of worrying about the opinions of others.   Give yourself a since of freedom allow yourself to make mistakes.   Lots of mistakes.