I’ve been on a productivity kick lately.

It could be that now that I am deep into 45, I hear the clock ticking more than ever, and since I do not have children, I am clamoring to create or craft something- anything- that will help me to feel that my life has been worth something, or that will at least help me to feel like I contributed something in life.

The hard part about being creative (and I don’t mean creative in the brilliant artsy sense, but rather in the more base but generically human sense in which every human is compelled to make or do stuff) lies in the fact that any craftsman has to, from the inception of his or her journey into a trade or art, learn how to do things. And any craftsman worth his trade must go through the excruciating stretching that must happen before the unskilled can become skilled.

To become skilled, everyone must endure the sea of mistakes they’ll make as they journey away from skillessness. What is key is that the journey is made, and that the mistakes when met are not accepted as impasses, dead ends to one’s aspirations toward ability.

Mistakes are merely just that, “miss takes”- tries that failed, that did not produce success, for a myriad of reasons. And, per theater parlance, a take is just that- an effort to try and produce a particular action or sequence or affect. A take missed is an effort to an end that failed, that’s all. That’s why directors are keen on filming multiple takes of a given scene at any time: they know that one will be the one they need, that moves the story along, that strengthens the overall vector of their purpose, and that ultimately trumps the other versions of the scene that were captured. They usually need a number of takes of a particular scene to get the one that ultimately they’ll need for their story.

So again, what is key in the journey is learning how to try and to fail, how to come to mistakes and not let them become final takes. Mistakes are simply calls to restart and to relearn, necessary side streets in one’s pilgrimage toward proficiency. Because in the end, its through the mistakes that we learn what we need to know to become capable and qualified and competent. Mistakes, when we learn from them, help us to weed out of our efforts and our processes those steps we thought we needed to take, which we learn we do not. And mistakes, when we learn from them, inevitably bring us closer to our goals.

And therein lies the most common issue we each face with our mistakes- what we do with them.

For me, mistakes have always largely been tied with stigma because somewhere along the way, I learned I shouldn’t make them, and if I did, my failures of competency were somehow linked to my value as a person. I learned that if I failed at a task, I was also a failure as a person. Naturally, failures of competency became paralyzing, so that as I became an adult, I took a road familiar to some. I decided to quit trying to try things. I let a questioning of my competent become, for me, a questioning of my quality. And I determined to not be seen as incompetent by anyone, if I could help it.

The truth is, that path for me helped to create the monster in me that I was trying to cover up. I remained incompetent. I remained undeveloped as an adult. And I became too paralyzed and paranoid to try new things. All for fear of failure.

This weekend, I had several major productivity goals I hoped to achieve. One, trimming back some out of control rose bushes in my backyard, I didn’t get to. The second, completing the realization of a planter box in my backyard, largely came to pass- the idea is now material in the yard behind the house. The third, what I thought would be a fairly simple task, the addition of a second shelf in a main closet in my house, went from plausible to probable to trainwreck, in 24 hours. The truth revealed in this project? I don’t know how to hammer very well in closed spaces. With excellent instructions, I yet don’t know what to do when the wall I work in has no studs. Painting prior to assembly, for an unskilled carpenter, is pretty useless. Knowing how to keep boards straight and true as they are attached to a wall is an art. Levels exist for a reason.

I am quick to flog myself for competency failures. But, as a friend reminded me today, failures happen, and are necessary for us to grow. What is important is that we allow ourselves to make mistakes. And then we don’t let the mistakes deter us from growing and learning and doing. As it is said, failure is not final.

I often am reminded of the wisdom of Coach Taylor from an episode of Friday Night Lights, when he is trying to teach one of his players about excellence. He summarizes his exhortation with a gem of a thought: “That’s what character is. Character is in the trying.”

I’ll have to start over on that danged shelf to get it done right.

I still gotta figure out how to properly prune a rose bush.

What’s important for me now, though, is the great discovery that I am making this far into my life.

Mistakes happen, and we all have to make them to grow and to become competent and capable- and that is good, and not bad.

The secret to dealing with making mistakes is not to stop making them. It’s to just keep trying on around and past them.

That’s the secret to a lot of richness in life.

Keep trying.