Recently one of the teacher trainees lingered after class to chat. Her message was this:
“Thank you for letting me suck and not making me feel bad about it. Because if I felt bad about it, it would probably push me even further away where I wouldn’t even want to try.”
We can all relate, right?
In high school I dreaded competition, or rather the idea of sucking, so much that I didn’t play sports. As an adult I have quit or avoided things I wasn’t good at.
Granted, there is some wisdom in this — go where your natural proclivity is, go where things flow easily.
But there is obvious benefit in having to work hard for something, charting improvement, or not improving and just doing it for the joy of the doing rather than for the goal of a result.
And perhaps the greatest gift is the permission we can give ourselves — to not want to try, to try and fail, to suck.
What would you do if sucking at it really bad made no difference?
I’ll go first… I would:
play music in public
write a book
plant a garden
cook without a recipe
volunteer to work with kids with developmental disabilities learning to ride horses
teach more
Your turn…….
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