Keep Failing, Keep Trying

Knowing is not the same as doing. To improve your communication skills (or any skills), you need to try. And fail. And try again.

I recently read Brené Brown’s Dare to Lead, and when I got to the part on “empathy fails,” I almost gave up. I’ve done them all. Made every mistake. Failed in every way there is to fail. And I’m supposed to be a communication expert! I was so discouraged that for a split second I was ready to give up not only on the book, but on my career and all relationships, too.

Not that I’m melodramatic or anything.

But here’s the wonderful and terrible thing about communication: It’s a skill. And all skills require practice. That’s wonderful, because that means anyone can improve if you’re willing to work. Terrible because … it requires work.

In the Information Age, we don’t like the idea of practice. We expect to see and then know. Once something is in your head, it should show up in your life, right? You read the blog. You watched the video. You even attended a training! You ask, “Why can’t I DO this yet? “

But you don’t actually become skilled at something until you do it, use it, try it and fail at it over and over and over again. Almost everything you do in life is learned behavior. Right now, aren’t you reading this blog? There was a time you couldn’t read. Did you take a…