I knew that my major challenges for my olympic knitting project would not be strictly about knitting. I am an experienced and capable knitter, so the actual *knitting* would not be an issue. My challenges are different.
Last year at this time I had a lot of pain in the base of my right thumb, where the tendons attach. Not just achey or stingy, but OW, OW, OW, THAT REALLY HURTS! when I did innocuous things like reaching for a bar of soap when in the shower. So knitting, a lot, over the course of two weeks is something that I need to be careful about. I think the pain finally went away because I got a list of stretches from a physical therapist, and have been doing the stretches ever since. Any time I feel a twinge, I stretch out my hands.................... So that is one challenge for me -- to be able to participate without injury.
The other challenge, and the more serious one, is mental.
It amuses me, in this olympic context, that so much of sport is mental -- I guess the lesson is that a lot of human endeavor is mental.......... Maybe what we are attempting is not as different from what is happening in Torino as I had been thinking...........
Anyway, I have times with almost every project where I run into some sort of conundrum (how and where to make the heel, say), and at those times, I put the project down and walk away.
This is not an entirely bad thing. I do continue to think about it, and I do problem-solve while I'm thinking-about-but-not-working-on-the-project. The problem is when I can't solve the problem without trying something(s!) that may have to be undone. I'm very likely to NOT do that.
Then I am very likely to get distracted by the next interesting idea, and the put-aside project(s!) can get very dusty indeed.
Another aspect of the mental-barriers-to-completion-of-projects is the Perfection Issue. Nearly every project diverges, at some point, from my original vision for it, and not all of them are happy divergences. Things just don't work the way I thought they would, or don't look the way I thought they would..... Sometimes it's a problem that needs to be solved, and sometimes That's Just The Way It Is. And that's another time when I tend to put it down and walk away.
(Digression -- in my work life, I don't have any trouble with "good enough." If the program *works*, I don't care if it's elegant and beautiful. When I go in to fix a bug, I do NOT rewrite an otherwise-working routine to reflect the current "best practice". In my artistic life, on the other hand, I am very bothered by things not being Just So. Who knows. A foolish consistency, etc, etc. :-) End of digression.)
Anyway.
One of my self-improvement projects is working on remembering that:
there is no "best way to do it" but rather many perfectly fine ways
the "time taken" issue is ENTIRELY AND UTTERLY beside the point and I'm working hard on putting it outside the picture -- this is not my livelihood; it *totally* Does Not Matter how long it takes..........
a sock with "the wrong increase" (left-facing where I meant to have a right-facing one) will function as well as a "perfect sock", and will probably get done, where the one with the "wrong increase" several inches back that awaits ripping and re-knitting probably won't ever get done. I said to someone who was pointing out to me the mistakes in a sock she was wearing -- "It looks like a FINISHED SOCK to me! That's more than I can say about any sock I've ever begun........."
more is more. When I was beginning to do collage with images cut out of magazines, I also cut out words and phrases. As it turns out, I do not like to have words in my work (though I like them fine in the work of others!), but one sentence I cut out really reverberates for me: What I lack in talent, I make up in volume. FAR better to make a lot of work than to put aside imperfect work and leave it to languish (maybe forever.......................)
In this environment, I am thrilled to proclaim that ----- not only did I finish the heel on sock1, but I did the toe of sock2 yesterday!!!!!!!!!!!
During the afternoon and evening, the heel wasn't going quite as I thought it should, and there was much mumbling and grumbling about how this whole project was stupid and I didn't like HAVING to work on it when I didn't FEEL like it. You can imagine. But I sat myself down and MADE myself work on it, and -- finished it. And then, as I had had to cut the yarn at the ankle of sock1 to do the heel, I decided to do the toe of sock2 and get right past that aggravation. (It actually went ok -- practice does make things easier.)
So -- in the olympic spirit of facing challenges, and working even when (no, *especially* when!) you don't feel like it!, and improving both your current performance and your ability to perform well in the future -- I am succeeding!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
:-)
Thank you, Stephanie, for inviting us to join you on this Olympic Journey!
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