1,000 reps vs. the perfect rep
“We discover the possibilities by doing, by trying new activities, building new networks, finding new role models.”
In July of 2022, I picked up watercolor painting. I would like to tell you that it was easy and every painting worked out. But, it was bad. Like….reeeeeeeal bad. I tried to paint a canyon scene of the photo that I took when my family hiked the Narrows at Zion National Park. Bad. I tried to paint Clint Eastwood. Bad bad. But I kept going and that made all the difference.
In a book entitled Art & Fear, the authors describe a photography class in which the students were divided into two groups. One group had to take 1,000 photos over the semester—just go and take a thousand. Another group of students had to take one—just one—but it had to be perfect. Guess which group thrived.
On his blog, James Clear describes the scenario: At the end of the term, he was surprised to find that all the best photos were produced by the quantity group.
"Everyone on the left side of the classroom, he explained, would be in the "quantity" group. They would be graded solely on the amount of work they produced. On the final day of class, he would tally the number of photos submitted by each student. One hundred photos would rate an A, ninety photos a B, eighty photos a C, and so on.
Meanwhile, everyone on the right side of the room would be in the "quality" group. They would be graded only on the excellence of their work. They would only need to produce one photo during the semester, but to get an A, it had to be a nearly perfect image."
The quantity group thrived, while the quality group stalled out because of the pressure to create and submit one perfect photo.
When I watercolor, I have this thought: If I can't do it well, I just won't do it. But even the failed watercolors are reps. And they're getting me to where I want to go. (Will I share these failed watercolor portraits? No. No I will not.)
The challenge is to do what you know you should do even when it feels bad, to put in the reps with the faith that something will come of it.
Is it daunting to pray? What if you say something wrong?
In Tim Keller's wonderful and difficult book on prayer, he claimed, "If we are going to be imbalanced, better that we be doctrinally weak and have a vital prayer life and a real sense of God on the heart than that we get all our doctrine straight and be cold and spiritually hard."
In other words, better to be active with a few mistakes than dormant and "perfect."
The good photos are built on the volume of the other ones. For a toddler, the good words are built on the mass of the clumsy ones. The amazing songs are built on the reps of the other songs.
The challenge is to see the advancement as clumsy, and to see the clumsiness as advancement. To rethink the reps. And leave the dogma that you know what your best work will be. In a million reps, there will be something there that 1. Surprises you in its quality and 2. Surprises you in its effect.
For me, the 1,000 photo effect is a call to do the things you know you should do, knowing full well you're not doing it perfectly. Heck, you may be doing it bad. (When I first started watercolors, I just loved how the tones dried on the paper. Yet, I was very bad. And sometimes I still am.)
And what if, even when you're experienced, you still don't "feel" it? Even when you're 1,000 reps down the road, you still feel like a beginner? That's okay. Just go for a thousand more.
(Are there typos in this post? Probably. It’s all part of the process.)
Amazing photo by:
https://unsplash.com/@baileymahon