“As a child you learned to roll over, sit up, crawl and walk by making more movements than are necessary. They are exaggerations. They weren’t close to what you needed to balance or move forward easily. This extra range of movement is part of the process of learning which we learn to eliminate. This IS how we learn.

These movements have been called Unwanted Parasitic Movements. The name sounds horrible, but this is all a necessary part of the process. You needed to exaggerate and learn to refine those exaggerations. You needed to eliminate these extraneous or ‘overly large movements’ in order to sit up, crawl and move forward.

When you learned to feed yourself, you repeatedly missed your mouth. You got food everywhere. You got food all over your face, bib, table, floor and others. You made extraneous large movements with your hand or spoon. You are like the rocket heading to the moon. You’re off course most of the time.

Activate Your Attitude! Manage Your Mindset For Happiness And Success

You are wildly off course. By going off course you are unconsciously learning what is needed to do and not do to get back on course! You are correcting bit by bit. You are honing your ability to balance, crawl, walk and to get the food to your mouth. You first exaggerate the movements and then reduce the range of your movements.

During this process, you never thought to call them mistakes. They were YET they are necessary for you to eventually hone your skills and be able to do what you now do efficiently. This process takes or expends extra energy at first to eventually streamline to conserve energy. The brain works by the principle of ‘Least Effort.’

These extra-large movements were at first necessary for balance, movement, and navigation. When you first learned to ride a bike, you were wobbly. Balance was difficult BUT you learned how to do it. EVENTUALLY! You went through the process until you learned how to do things. It streamlines.

Activate Your Attitude! Manage Your Mindset For Happiness And Success

You reduced or eliminated these Unwanted Parasitic Movements. Why are they unwanted and parasitic? Because ultimately you don’t need them. They take energy to perform. They are necessary but eventually they and the energy required is reduced so you can expend the minimum amount of energy to perform them well.

You need to learn unconsciously how to stop doing them in order to get the spoon to your mouth, for you to sit up, crawl, walk, ride a bike and so many other things. It is not a conscious process. You don’t manage it with your intellect. When first learning to print or write or even color, staying in the lines was not easy at first.

Your brain in learning what you need and want to learn exaggerated what you need to do before you can refine it. Consider this. These UWPMs are necessary. At first, they were larger than necessary to perform the action. They were not even close to the refined movements you learned to make because of them.

Activate Your Attitude! Manage Your Mindset For Happiness And Success

It IS like coloring outside the lines. You went outside the lines while learning to color inside the lines. Get it? You learned to eliminate all that was unnecessary. The brain needed this exaggeration in order to refine it. You have never done these things before. Exaggeration is useful because it sets the outer parameters or boundaries.

Those lines are boundaries you need to stay within. You go outside the lines. With intention and desire to remain within the lines you eventually do. You stopped these extraneous movements bit by bit to refine and perform these skills efficiently. Again, you streamline to conserve energy and efficiently perform unconsciously.

You got rid of these unwanted parasitic movements to smoothly navigate the spoon to your mouth. It was all done through repetition for long enough. It IS all learning. All the while, you were learning through exaggeration. It was ‘not that way, but this way’. It is ‘not that, but this’ when it comes to aiming your hand to your mouth.

Activate Your Attitude! Manage Your Mindset For Happiness And Success

Watch a new infant sit up. Notice how much it wobbles as it is learning to sit comfortably still. The infant is learning to balance from all these extraneous movements. You and I may call it struggle but the infant is just doing it. It is doing what is necessary to learn the balance required to sit upright. Understand this

Good thing you couldn’t talk or think about it as you do now because most likely you’d have quit after the first or second try and starved to death. You would not be reading this blog. You did it because you did it. You didn’t blame or excuse. You kept doing it until you mastered it. Learn from this. Learn to stop self-talk when learning.

Stop whining and complaining, excusing and blaming and learn to JUST do what you want to be able to do without commenting. Commit. Persist. Repeat correctly for long enough and you will develop the ability or skill. Mistakes are part of the process. Even when it seems you may be way off course IT IS ALL part of the learning experience.  ALL of it is a gift. When you get this, understand this and accept this your life will begin to transform in amazingly delightful ways. Celebrate everything!” Rex Sikes