You Mastered Something – How’d You Do It?

Do you remember when you were a kid and obstacles and setbacks had not yet made it into your life? Through our childhood years there were so many things that we set our minds on that we knew we could accomplish. Maybe we saw others around us do it, or maybe we saw something on TV that we wanted to imitate. Whatever the source, if we truly wanted to do it, we freed our minds to focus on that thing and we got it done. We all have something, although it may seem so small now that it’s not easy to recall. Let’s just go with when you started walking, or riding a bike. I can’t remember walking but I can surely remember how important it was for me to ride a bike. It didn’t come easy, but no matter how many times I fell, there was no chance I was going back to training wheels.

A more impactful memory for me was my desire to play basketball. I would spend hours in the yard working on dribbling the ball between my legs. Once you embark on a journey, one accomplishment will take you to the next.  After mastering dribbling between my legs in a stationary manner, I saw my older brother walking down the street while consecutively dribbling between his legs. Watching the older kids and seeing moves from N.B.A players inspired me to go further on the path of mastering basketball.  I would spend all of my free time with the basketball trying to walk down the street while consecutively putting the ball between my legs. It took years to get to a point where I could walk the full length of the street without losing my handle. Every aspect of the game received my undivided attention and basketball became a part of my everyday life. Once I reached high school, I made the varsity team as a freshman.

Have you ever noticed that when you show you really want something, opportunities start to come your way? When you start along a path, start to put toward a bit of effort and continually improve through experience, people will see value in your newfound skill. Whether they just want to lend a helping hand, or if they can benefit from your ability, the laws of attraction seem to bring them your way. You will achieve success when preparation connects with opportunity. With the effort I put toward basketball, my parents and coaches would find neighborhood camps as they connected with my passion. Once I took the initiative to play in various settings, college opportunities started to come my way. Even now that I’m older opportunities to hang with the fellas and get cardio through a fun basketball game come to me without me looking for it. For an example outside of basketball, in college I thought it would be cool to be a writer. I took a shot and wrote a play in a theater class and the head of the department directed me to a writing group. From there I would come across various classes to learn skills such as screenwriting – Build, and opportunities will come.

It’s interesting that often in our adult lives we don’t choose to put this amount of effort into the things we want. We’ve seen setbacks and obstacles, so we suddenly understand “reality.” Now we let the fear of failure (we’ve felt the pain before) stop us from putting our all into something. Well here’s the message of today:

You’re still here so your past failures didn’t kill you. In terms of wasting time, you didn’t waste any at all if you learned something from the experience. Because mistakes and failures are the best teachers, you absolutely learned something.

Just as your past failures didn’t kill you, neither will going after what you want today. It won’t impact your survival. With the wisdom and experience you’ll gain, you’ll find a way to be great at it. It’s time to attain the faith of the little kid that hasn’t yet experienced failure. You’ll be glad you did.

“Experience: that most brutal of teachers. But you learn, my God do you learn” ~ C.S Lewis