3 Things Baking Can Teach About Work (And Life!)
“Hard work and determination equals success. Nothing comes easy. Put your mind to something.” - Kevin Hart
Every generation and person is unique but one thing that has survived the test of time is the idea that hard work and determination equals success. From parents yelling at their kids on the way to school to celebrities addressing audiences through a television screen, it is a teaching that has been restated and reprised as we progress through different stages in life. Although there is much truth to working hard and being determined leading a person to success they are not the only attributes worth pursuing. Sometimes the little things in our lives can lead to unexpected teachings as well.
Patience
Though I’m not yet as good as I’d like to be, something that I have always enjoyed is baking. I love getting to work with different tools and ingredients to make something good. However one thing that I have not always been good at is learning that all good things take patience. Once something goes in the oven there is literally nothing I can do for that item except wait for the oven to finish doing its job. And I kind of hate that. Sometimes I wish that there was something more I could do to help the oven or that maybe turning up the heat would speed the process up. But besides hard work all good things take time. Just as I cannot expect my cakes to finish when I want them to, I cannot push unrealistic expectations upon myself or on others to finish things in record time.
Be Kind to Yourself
Have you ever watched a video and thought, “I can totally make that” only to find out the hard way that you cannot actually make that? There have definitely been times where I spent way too much time and money trying to make something only for it to be lacking in taste or presentation (or sometimes embarrassingly enough both) leaving me discouraged and wondering where I went wrong when I had felt so confident that I had followed the instructions exactly as I was supposed to. Unfortunately, sometimes we can try our very hardest to do everything right and still not feel as though we measure up. It is something very human where no matter how good we are at something we will always compare ourselves to someone better. This is something I felt throughout the IS core and is something I struggle with even now. But pushing yourself past your limits all of the time can be exhausting. I can’t be great at everything or expect myself to never struggle. Sometimes there are just going to be things that I won’t be very quick in becoming good at and sometimes I’m going to make a little bit of a mess of things. But not everything can always be perfect. In both baking and life you cannot expect to discover good and wonderful things without making a few messes.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help!
Hard work and determination won’t take you as far or as fast if you don’t even know what you're doing. Good things can be very difficult, however they don’t need to feel so impossible with a helping hand. Even when the tasks seem simple and familiar the agile principles emphasize how counterintuitive things such as multitasking really are. Too often I find myself in the same predicament. I’ve invited some friends for dinner and dessert and have declined their offers to help with the cooking or to bring some food over. Although I know that I am capable of doing the tasks that need to be done, they’ll be at my apartment in 20 minutes and not only is the kitchen a mess but the ham needs at least another 40 minutes in the oven. This is not the first time I’ve known that if I had just reached out or accepted a little help, I could have saved myself the stress and anxiety of having to complete so much in such a short amount of time. The BYU IS program taught me that we should always be willing to give and receive help because we are not alone. Most of the time in reaching out to others for help, I am able to learn and progress a lot faster than I would on my own. Another benefit to receiving help from others is that it better prepares us to help others. In helping one another, we help ourselves in the process! Working with others makes the process more efficient and helps us to work smarter and not necessarily harder in achieving success for ourselves and our teammates! By applying these principles, it becomes much easier to create a delicious meal that everyone can enjoy taking part in.