This is what my 5 year old said to me on the way to ski school this morning:
‘Mama, I do want to be a great skier, but I don’t want to be a learner.’
'I know exactly what you mean, wee man’, is what I said.
Wouldn’t it be so fun to click into the skis and whizz, effortlessly down the piste.
But that isn’t the way of it.
You have to fall down, you have to fall down again and again and again.
Keep getting up.
Stay uncomfortable.
Go slow.
Have someone show you. Get it wrong and do it again.
Be a learner.
I love that this is the way of it.
I love that the prize of becoming a great skier, coach, parent, spouse, employee, colleague or leader isn’t the role itself.
The prize is the confidence that you develop from the skills you acquire through being a learner.
The gold medal is knowing you can learn whatever it is you want to learn, be whomever you want to be because discomfort isn’t something you shy away from.
You’ve learned that discomfort is the currency to realising everything it is you want in your life.
Show up.
Ready to be a learner.
Ready to fall because you know that there’s magic in every fall that you stand up from.
When I picked him up, he said ‘Mama, I’m so proud of me. I fell a 1,000 times and then I just got up again’.
‘There’s nothing I would wish for you more, wee man. I’m so proud of you too’.
For you to think about:
What would you love to learn but hold yourself back from?
What is it that's stopping you?
Fear of embarrassment, failure or lack of belief that you can do it? Know it and name it.
