Jordan was so excited! Today he had soccer trials, and he wanted to make the team so very much.
He had been practising for weeks, trying to perfect all his moves, and he wanted to show his coach how good he was.
As he approached the field, dressed in his soccer attire, he began to feel extremely nervous as he surveyed the others players who were also there to try out.
The soccer match started with everyone being split into teams to play against one another, and Jordan focused his attention on the game and getting the ball.
Finally, after thirty minutes into the game, Jordan had the opportunity to show off his skills and was placed to kick a goal.
As he lined the ball up and prepared for his kick, he felt his fear begin to rise. He knew this was his make-or-break moment.
His soccer boot made contact with the ball, and as it flew off into the direction of the goal, it hit the post and bounced away. He didn’t score.
Jordan heard the sound of the whistle as the coach motioned him off the field and put in another player to replace him.
Jordan felt defeated. He knew he would be cut from the team. He had stuffed up his opportunity and failed. He felt shame and anger with himself and as he walked back to his seat thinking, “I am a failure”.
So began the story of “I am a failure”, and consequently the story of giving up and not even trying.
But the reality is that life is an ongoing process of learning, progressing, and growing—and learning, ultimately, is the process of doing, failing, and repeating. We cannot learn if we don’t continually try, fail, and then repeat.
Unfortunately society conditions us to believe that if we attempt to learn something new and fail in our first attempt, then we should not continue, but rather give up and try something else.
This is the path of least resistance: trying, giving up, and quitting.
However, the road to success and accomplishment is filled with trying, practising, failing, trying again, more practising, more failing and continual practising until the goal is finally achieved.
For trying and failing means learning. Learning how to do it better, learning how to improve, and learning how to get it right.
In that spirit, this week’s challenge is to try and do something that you have always wanted to do, or have done in the past and given up.
Begin to see it through the lens of learning. Learn everything about it by experimenting, exploring, and having fun. The beauty of experimentation is that it shows you what you do or don’t want. Keep going and continue experimenting until you achieve what you truly desire!
Remember, it took Thomas Edison over 10,000 experiments to invent the light globe.
So have faith and enjoy the process!
Deborah Ruth
Storyteller
