I was fortunate to have certain things come naturally to me as a child. I was coordinated and I was strong. I had good reflexes and I picked up sports quickly. I excelled in some of them early on. Because of that, I believe I had a lot of undeserved confidence at a young age. It’s not that I didn’t deserve to feel good about myself, but I was no where near perfect, or even yet established. I had a lot to learn - a lot to experience. I had to fail just as much as I wanted to succeed, and I needed to survive that. I was also good at making friends. People thought I was funny, so I could easily fit in. I don’t know if the jokes I made were relevant to me or not, but I know that I liked to make people laugh. I believe that is where and how I started to get away from who I really was, and what I really thought. I wanted to laugh and I wanted my friends and family to laugh, so I put on little shows here and there. This sense of humor has helped me immensely, but I would be remiss if I didn’t ackowledge some of the ways it has held me back. How easily I could dismiss a thing I didn’t understand or couldn’t somehow grasp, by making a joke about it. The only way to get good at something is to let yourself be bad at it first. A client reminded me just yesterday that you don‘t start out knowing everything. No one does. I’ve always loved the quote, “The expert in anything was once a beginner," and I use it frequently.
I truly believe I missed out on a lot, because I didn't "get it" right away. There were things I didn't need to put any effort into, or at least very much - why wouldn't I just do those things? That is the caveat of having some things come so naturally. You forget or maybe you don't even learn how to learn. You focus on the things you're good at, and you start to avoid the things you are not. That's what I did anyway, for a lot of my life. I took so much pride in being that girl who's so good at this or that, that I didn't allow myself to just be a girl - a girl who was living in this big world with so much wonder and who wanted to learn about it. But to do that, she first had to admit she didn't know. If I could go back, I would tell her that it's okay to not know. It's okay to not know. But you don't stay there, sulking about it. You learn! You try. You show up and put in the effort. That is where everything starts. We learn and grow more than we could have ever imagined by going beyond our comfort zones. So, what will it be? My new thing is racquetball. I don't know the rules, but I find it incredibly therapeutic. And guess what? I'm not that good yet, and it's so much fun.
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