Hello,
after listening to the first chapters of the audiobook from Dean Graziosi's "Millionaire Success Habits" recently it suddenly clicked with me. He was speaking about that trying to improve your weaknesses doesn't make any sense. Rather should you focus on improving your strengths. Dan has Dyslexia and his teachers commented on this many times when he was a student. He was struggling with this "issue" for many years, and questioning himself and being embarrassed. He thought because of the misbehaviour of his teachers, he would never make it in life. Now he is a super successful millionaire if not a billionaire employing many people and providing his family in a fabulous manner. They told him so many times to improve his reading skills, but his brain structure was just not made for this. He has so many other talents and abilities, but was neglecting them for so many years. It's a really interesting story which inspired me to write this blog article, to inspire you to do the same. To Focus on the things you are strong at by nature without any effort and the things which just provide joy to you.
This is also connected to bad advice. Because guess what?! The advice from his and my teachers was actually bad. It was leading to big frustration and questioning yourself. Self doubt was the result. Not a good base to set up a successful career, right?
Basically my whole life, i'm 35 now, i was trying frantically to improve my handwriting. Reason being, my teachers and parents told me every five minutes that it was terrible and they couldn't read it
"Ohhh please write nicer, that's so terrible, please put more effort in your handwriting, i can't read that".
This was making me feel very bad about myself and i tried really hard, believe me. "Hey Markus, look at Florian, he has such a beautiful handwriting, take an example on him" my primary school teacher said to me once. This stuck with me for many, many years. After realising Florian was bullying me in high school the story became even more interesting, but thats another blog article.
So what to do about it? How to improve my skills on putting down connected letters on paper in such a beautiful fashion that everyone is pleased? Well, i bought excercise books for handwriting to improve that damn skill. I was writing 1 Trillion k's and t's and m's and you get the idea ... Bought "How to improve your handwriting" Books and worked with them. Learned new techniques and was how to write more nicely. And my handwriting actually improved (a little bit). But in my mind, i stayed the same young boy in primary school with that crippling feeling and thought "Im not good enough, because my handwriting is not good enough and ugly". So i kept on going. Watched more YouTube Videos about it, practised more. It became kinda obsession. In my mind, i rather wanted to please others than please myself and make peace with handwriting. In this regards, i didn't take enough care about my needs. I just wanted to be liked and accepted for my handwriting skills. So the years went on, my k's, t's , m's and so on got really good isolated, but when it came to actual handwriting and connecting letters to words and sentences, i failed. Especially, when people were around i felt observed. Writing in proximity of my dad was a nightmare. I was totally tensed and felt terrible.
"Markus common, write more nicely" was enough to kick me back in the past and scarcity.
Ah yeah, when you are working in a restaurant and taking orders from customers when its really busy, and the chef and staff can't read your handwriting, it's becoming even more funny!
So i still couldn't enjoy my handwriting. Why is that? Why did i feel after all this years still not able to express my thoughts and feelings in a way, i would like or didn't care so much?
(I actually became really good in calligraphy and hand lettering, because i spent so many hours on practicing single letters .. but that's a topic for another blog article as well ..)
It's because it wasn't the skill of handwriting itself or the technique "how to hold the pen right" or just write in a steady rhythm (which is important too) it was just simply a thing called "fear". The fear of being judged, the fear of being not liked, the fear of being rejected. When i was alone in a room, and wrote something for myself i was more relaxed, and the connected letters called "words" looked actually pretty good and i felt good about them. But when people around, ok we had that topic ... I basically froze, my hands also which means it was just not flowing. No rhythm, too much pressure. Pressing too hard on the pen as well. Interesting how the inner world is reflecting on the outer world and actions. I set myself so much under pressure. Huge pressure.
Ok .. now .. whats the solution? whats the way out of catch-22?
I learned the technical skills of handwriting which are:
A) finding the right pen pressure on paper, not too hard, not too soft. You can compare it to manual gear shifting with cars where you should find the sweetspot, otherwise your engine will turn off (for all American's who don't know what i'm talking about, i'm sorry :P)
B) write in a steady rhythm
C) try to keep the distances between the letters in a consistent distance
D) hold your pen between your indexfinger and thumb so your hand is more likely to stay relaxed
E) connect the letters rather than put them isolated on the paper
F) learn a writing technique which allows you to write letters more in a circular way which helps you with point E
got it? Good, FORGET IT! :)
Once this technical skills are internalized in your muscular body memory, you can stop practicing them. Or maybe once in a while, when you feel for it.
Just write and don't care what other people think about it. Feel good about it. Love it. OWN it!
Guess what will happen? The wonder will start to begin. Your handwriting will become actually more legible. It will become more beautiful. It will become a wonderful expression of you! You will start to enjoy it.
Ah yea, what COULD happen as well is, that you start a desire for buying a nice pencil or pen and maybe a nice notebook because you discovered that writing, or let's say hand writing is actually fun and enjoyable and it just feels great to have quality material (it doesn't have to be a Mont Blanc though, you get the idea ;)). You will find yourself sitting in a café or in the train and taking notes in a manner, you've never experienced before.
My conclusion: when people can't read what you and me are writing or give funny comments, it's their problem! Period.
Fritz
P. S. for hammering it in your system:
just write and don't care what other people think about. Feel good about it. Love it. OWN it!