Take the Chance

I recently listened to an interesting interview with a book publisher who has also written her own book about ‘sucking’ at things. She claims it is important and beneficial to do things that you will suck at. That may seem like a rather odd or contrary approach!

She gave the example of always wanting to learn to surf but never living in the right locale or having the time until she hit her mid forties. She went to the beach with a bunch of young guys to learn to surf and she stated, “I truly sucked at it but I also absolutely loved it”. Now fifteen or so years later she still regularly surfs and she loves it and the community of people she’s meet as a result. None of that would have been possible if she had not been willing to fail or suck.

This weekend I went back to Nashville to visit friends. One of my girlfriends Abbe told me that she’s joined an adult swimming league. She said she was going to the pool 3 or 4 days a week watching her sons swim when the coach approached her about joining an adult league. Her response to him was, “I don’t even like to put my face in the water!”. Well fast forward four months later she’s getting up early three days a week for swim practice and she absolutely loves it. The league has wrapped up but her new community of swim friends have continued meeting. She took a chance and was willing to suck or fail and enriched her life instead.

I can say the same for myself. When I moved to Arizona, I was curious about country dancing but also very intimidated. I went to watch one night and a couple seeing me sitting and watching coerced me to take the lesson. It wasn’t beginners luck but I did laugh and smile a lot. I’ve become good friends with that couple and country dancing is one of my favorite things to do now.

Each of us - myself include took a chance and tried Pilates for the first time (or maybe you are still thinking about trying it). You ventured into the studio with the weird equipment and allowed yourself to be taught something new and be a bit vulnerable as well. Given the fact that our students keep coming back and tell me how much they love Pilates - I’d say it was a good risk!

I wanted to share this today because I know there have been times I have hesitated to do something that I really was interested for fear of not being very good at it. To that I say - who cares? You aren’t expected to be an expert on your first try! If you could master Pilates in one session, I’d be unemployed. Next time you are on the fence reframe your thoughts to ‘what could go right’ instead of ‘what could go wrong’.