Silly. Lazy. Stupid.

At school nobody called me stupid - because I was good at doing mathematical calculations in my head. But I was bad at  written maths. Teachers explained away this paradox with the terms ‘silly mistakes’ and ‘laziness’, and saw no need to support me further.

I left school and became a psychologist. Eventually I discovered what I was good at - creativity, modelling, and decision-making under pressure. I worked in elite sport where many people thought like I did.   

But 6 weeks ago I signed up for an online study course in maritime navigation. Navigation requires precision, memorisation, and the ability to follow complicated but not difficult processes where a single small error means a wrong result. In some ways it was like being back at school.

Working through exercises, I noticed that when I made a mistake, I would label it as “silly” and get angry with myself. But that was no more effective now than it had been decades ago. I developed a strategy. I defined silly mistakes as errors of concentration rather than of comprehension. I made a spreadsheet and documented every single silly mistake as I made it. 

After a time, I realised I wasn’t making these errors because they were hard. I was making these errors because they were easy - or at least because I thought they were easy. And because I thought they were easy, I gave them less attention than they needed. That was a good discovery.

One of my performance theories of life is that you have to triage your energy accurately - give the right things the right amount of attention. Problems like OCD, anxiety and procrastination all come from giving too much or too little attention to a challenge or opportunity based on its significance and probability. The same could be said about silly mistakes.

Doing the navigation course, I realised that despite my weaknesses, I had developed some skills that could be applied here. 

First, I can grind. I can put in the work. As a young man, the “lazy” label gave me no positive instruction. I didn’t work hard because I hadn’t discovered that hard work worked. Second, now I can drive myself. I can work long hours with intensity and purpose. And third, I know how to ‘hook’ - I know how to get my attention back when I have lost it.

Looking back, my challenge to my teachers would be: why didn’t you realise that the problem was concentration not intelligence? What could you have done to help me either stay attentive, or recover my attention? And why didn’t you help me understand, step by step, that working through something would help me master it?

If, like me, you are a creative, fast, abstract thinker, hopefully you will find a space which is suited to your thinking style. But, with this thinking style come predictable weaknesses - distractibility, blindness to detail, and lapses in memory.

In the navigation course, my single biggest “silly mistake” was copying numbers incorrectly. At first, I became obsessive about checking, but this took up too much time. I iteratively developed a systematic quality control method, which included having the patience and discipline to write down all of my working, and using pencil check marks to record that I had checked everything, but only once. By developing a system, I was using a strength of my restless mind to solve one of its weaknesses.

Normally I resist memorisation and long tedious tasks because I feel more creative when I have a low mental load. But in order to master navigation, I had to accept both of these challenges.

And doing so gave me two insights.

First, the more I did the long tedious task, the better I got at it, and the less tedious it became. I did it quicker, it was easier and more automatic, and I made fewer mistakes and had fewer corrections. Second, memorisation is only hard until you get the memory into your head. Keeping it in there isn’t too difficult. Improving both abilities gave me a sense of accomplishment. 

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder is a label that is widely used. I respect the distress that many people who have been labelled as ADHD experience, and the sense of relief they can experience when finding a label that can describe a confusing and sometimes debilitating set of symptoms.

But I have always resisted a label with the word “disorder” in it. Children who can’t sit still in class aren’t disordered, they were just designed to move. Adults who get lost in the pace, and details and distractions of modern life should blame the world, not themselves.

I wrote the exam last week, and would love to report back and say that I aced it. I didn’t. I passed, but it was an absolute grind. Fortunately I know how to do that now.

Over time, I have become aware of my concentration strengths, and quite good at finding situations which suit me and where I am at my best.

I have also become more realistic about my weaknesses. This means seeing them as neither bigger nor smaller than they are. It means developing systems and processes to support areas where I am weak (this is why I design data systems and iterate workflow methodologies). And it means knowing I am tempted by distraction and must actively seek calm environments.

But third, because this is the real world, it also means that I must engage with detail, tedium, and mundanity. And if I do, even my restless creative mind can find peace in the mundane. The more you do it, the more competent you become, the less mental load it creates, and the more accomplishment you feel. 

Part of growing in confidence is acknowledging a weakness without being discouraged by it, and being optimistic that through effort you can improve abilities even if you weren’t born to them or they don’t come naturally.

Is there an area in your work or life where a “silly” label is obstructing a useful insight and consequent progress?