I am participating in the 31 Days of Free Writes October challenge. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. (Confession: I *may* not be able to resist spell-checking!)
Today’s prompt: Try
“You won’t know unless you try.”
How often have you said that to yourself …. or to a child …. or to a friend who is not sure they are capable of a goal they are considering setting for themselves?
Not being able to run for the past year has been a *big* lesson in the fact that sometimes success isn’t an effort of trying harder. My body is not willing to be a part of the running world right now, and I have (kind of) made peace with that.
But for the things we can do but that our confidence challenges are keeping us from, maybe it’s time to reframe (yes, I am talking to myself here — anyone else who benefits — that’s a plus!).
I have a part-time job in the mornings that I truly love. I lay in bed Thursday night, thinking how grateful I am to be excited about waking up and working the next morning. I don’t think I ever felt that kind of excitement in 20 years at the job I left in 2014 (not that I wasn’t excited about the cause of children’s health insurance — I just never find a sweet spot of confidence + competence + cultural fit).
I made a mistake yesterday at that part-time job. This is a problem because the place prides itself on “pristine editing.” I *know* that at least two more editors after me see the work and have the opportunity to correct it, so the final is almost always perfect, but it’s easy to beat myself up for making the error in the first place.
[Note — my five minutes ended after the above paragraph and I had already written the ending (a lesson I’ve learned in five-minute writing world!). But I didn’t finish my thought so I’ll add that below under “the sixth minute and beyond.”]
Trying doesn’t always bring the reward we hope, but it builds something more intrinsically rewarding in the process.
***
The sixth minute and beyond:
I am reminded that even if my work wasn’t perfect, that’s one of the errors that will help me be better at this job in the future. I someone had just *said* “don’t ever make that error,” I may or may not have remembered as I went about my work.
But MAKING it, and owning up to it, means it will be a prominent consideration in my head every time I touch the work from Monday on. I learned by trying.
And by doing so, I became better at something I really enjoy doing (and am further motivated to find a way to keep doing it as part of my work/life jigsaw puzzle whose pieces seem to be shifting all the time.)
Wife of one, Mom of two, Friend of many. My pronouns are she/her/hers.
THIS: “Trying doesn’t always bring the reward we hope, but it builds something more intrinsically rewarding in the process.”
Thanks Tara! Honestly, I was pretty relieved I managed to write a post about the word “try” without invoking Yoda. 🙂 🙂 🙂