I’m a late bloomer. Have been for as long as I can recall, and thanks to Gladwell I feel pretty good about it.
As he describes, my goals are imprecise, my approach to nearly everything experimental (I would add experiential but maybe that’s redundant) and, yep, my procedure tentative (at least initially)& incremental. I rarely feel like I have “succeeded” – somehow the word has an end-time or finishing connotation to me and I pretty much always feel like there’s always more to go – more to do – better to get… though I do recognize and celebrate improvement. One of many reasons that CrossFit is so particularly engaging for me, but OMG I know you don’t want to hear that *again*.
The “late” part of late bloomer is interesting. I frequently feel as though I learn ‘life’ lessons quite a bit later than my peers. Some more than others, for sure. Seems like Shelley is always saying “Yep – you should absolutely be doing ____ right now – it’s day 47 and that’s when _____ happens” but not in a smart ass way – in this comforting way that tells me that she understands exactly the place I am because she too has been in that very place. She’s amazing. Anyway – this feeling of learning late is often accompanied by a feeling of learning them…er…better – but I think that’s just how it feels due to the fact that it’s MY process for learning/internalizing and of COURSE it feels like it’s better than someone else’s. That’s how we’re built! We all think we’re “intelligent” and I’m a particularly HARD learner. I’m not a first set at anything girl – I peak in the 3rd or 4th or last set of things and generally not without a good deal of failure, frustration, and pain. That’s fine – I like learning my lessons hard. I know I’ve earned them that way.
On the super-highway of self-discovery (as opposed to the insignificant sounding ‘path’) one of the lessons I’ve been reflecting on recently is achieving the result that you put “energy” toward. Makes perfect sense, and seems like something everyone EXCEPT me has known and understood forever. I try at things but prolly spend more time focused on how inadequately I’m performing than the fact that I’m DOING it and therefore putting energy toward improving. Happened the other day at the gym. Working on squats with coach and feeling dumb and frustrated because I’m not doing ‘textbook’ squats. Thinking and trying hard to push my knees out first, then my butt back and down and OMG not let my knees come forward in the bottom. As usual – a bit frustrated – and as always – gently reminded by coach that we’ll be working on this for about, oh, FOREVER! Riiight. So the fact that I’m there, doing it, getting feedback and practicing to do it correctly is putting energy toward getting better at it. I’m not going to get better by NOT doing it because I’m not capable of doing it perfectly. DUH. Occurred to me this morning that the same thing goes for pull-ups. I don’t *have* a pull-up yet. I’m not going to get one by sitting on the couch thinking about how I don’t have a pull-up yet – I’ll get one by doing jumping pull-ups, band pull-ups, push presses and whatever else works on pull-ups.
Now for today’s big leap. I learned this lesson in the gym, by “doing” things - and from coach Street – as is the case for so many things. Today I OMG applied it to another situation. Head waggle and tight tiny smile of pride. Talking with one who is close to me about an upcoming potentially difficult set of circumstances that we’ll be faced with and how our relationship will be impacted. I realized that we’ll “be” & will react in a manner consistent with where we put the most energy. If we decide to believe that we’ll be stronger and have a better relationship as a result of the tests the situation will deliver - then we’ll think and act in a manner that supports that more often than not & the result will be that we’re stronger. If we spend lots of energy being fearful and worried about the impact then we won’t get any pull-ups for SURE. You know what I mean.
I’m going to practice this little energy/thinking thing as much as possible. I suspect there’s something really powerful here. I suspect that each of you reading has already figured this out before me because I'm a late bloomer So please share your experiences with me live or via mail.
Love you, friends.
