Hey hey, do you often get people come up to you and compliment you on your models whilst also self deprecating their own skills and abilities? I know I’m guilty of it myself but when you see a beautiful model loco someone has put hours of time and effort into, you can’t help but compare yourself to that person, the Modeler who has probably been in the hobby longer than you’ve been alive. That person only sees the end product, not the countless hours and persistence you have applied to get that model the way it appears to them.
Of course there’s the age old “oh I could never do something like that!” Or “I haven’t got the skills that you have”. But one thing I have learned having been both people in this situation is it’s not skills or talent that make the model. Skills are something you can learn and takes practice to develop, anyone can do that. What is really required is persistence; persistence to master that skill, persistence to find that knowledge, persistence to avoid that error next time. It’s not the same as patience (although that can help) but it’s not giving up the first sign of something not going right the first time.
I recall seeing Gav Stallard’s scratch-built DB at an exhibition one year and thinking exactly what I described above, that I’ll never achieve what he had achieved at that stage. I of course never saw how long or how many times Gav made a mistake. I look back now and whilst I didn’t build the DB I own today, I have assembled locomotive and wagon kits with the confidence to say that you too can get there one day. So my response to those who say “I’ll never be as good as you” would be “given the right amount of persistence, you too can be as good if not better, don’t give up at the first mistake or hurdle”.
No comments:
Post a Comment