And I was happy…Spanx you very much!
As we all know, “the F-word” is one of the worst four-letter words you can speak. While I personally love it for its versatility and (in)appropriateness in nearly every situation (and frequently accused of using it way too much – hello wifey!) there is another F-word that I believe is viewed as even worse by society, and that is FAILURE.
Since we were kids, we were taught that failure was a dirty word…I mean a really dirty f*&#ing word! Did you ever receive a test back from a teacher in elementary with a huge F in bold red letters? Get told not to try that…you could hurt yourself, or fall, or get funny looks from strangers? Get cut from a team?
My 9 year old came home the other day from school and told me he was trying out for the 11 and under basketball team. I was totally stoked as I love the game and happy he wants to give it a go. But then I found out Lebron-Fever is sweeping Singapore and 24 kids were trying out for 11 spots. This news seriously freaked both of us out. He wasn't sure if he should try out because he didn’t want to feel like a failure – to me, his mom, his coach, his friends…himself!
I was afraid that if my son got cut (getting cut = epic FAIL) at such a young age he may give up basketball for good. Plus, I just simply didn’t want my kid to have to work through that pain, rejection and embarrassment of not making the team.
My mind immediately went into damage control mode – should I let him try out knowing the odds were against him? Should I convince him to wait and try next year after he had more time to practice and develop his skills to compete against 11 year olds?
Then, I read an article in HuffPo on Sara Blakely, billionaire founder of Spanx. In the article it talks about how her father encouraged the young Sara to talk about and even celebrate failures that happened every day in her life at school. He positively reinforced her efforts and demonstrated that “NOT TRYING” was the real failure.
That triggered a memory of another story I heard a while back about boy that went skiing for the first time. At the end of the day, he boasted to his father that he hadn’t fallen all day to which his father responded, well, then you didn’t try hard enough and you didn’t get any better. The son was deflated but the message was clear, falling isn’t failing. Not trying and pushing yourself is failing!
So when does a switch flip that tells us we can’t fail? A young baby stands and falls and stands and falls for days, weeks months, before it finally takes those first few precious steps. The entire time, adults are standing around, smiling, clapping, cheering and encouraging them to keep trying. And they do! They keep at it until they walk. So when does that stop? When do we start expecting our kids to be immediately perfect, or at least capable of doing a new activity? It’s ridiculous, right? But somewhere along the line we stop encouraging our kids to try, fail and try again and simply expect them to be good at something right away. If they are not, we assume they don’t have the talent for it and let them give up.
So, I had a talk with my son about the F-Word and explained that I would only be disappointed if he didn’t try out for the team. We would celebrate “the trying” and the effort and the risk-taking not whether some other random person/coach thought his skills were good enough…F-him and his opinion! It didn’t matter. Giving it a shot mattered. Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone mattered.
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, my son made the team! So, I didn’t get a chance to work through the entire lesson with him but I know it will happen soon enough, especially if I keep encouraging him to push it to the next level.
Of course, I learned a lot too. I was always a bit nervous to write about these types of issues…people would think my writing sucked, change their opinion of me, hate it…whatever. Well, I am saying F-that….I am not f%#ing worried about the F-word anymore!
As we all know, “the F-word” is one of the worst four-letter words you can speak. While I personally love it for its versatility and (in)appropriateness in nearly every situation (and frequently accused of using it way too much – hello wifey!) there is another F-word that I believe is viewed as even worse by society, and that is FAILURE.
Since we were kids, we were taught that failure was a dirty word…I mean a really dirty f*&#ing word! Did you ever receive a test back from a teacher in elementary with a huge F in bold red letters? Get told not to try that…you could hurt yourself, or fall, or get funny looks from strangers? Get cut from a team?
My 9 year old came home the other day from school and told me he was trying out for the 11 and under basketball team. I was totally stoked as I love the game and happy he wants to give it a go. But then I found out Lebron-Fever is sweeping Singapore and 24 kids were trying out for 11 spots. This news seriously freaked both of us out. He wasn't sure if he should try out because he didn’t want to feel like a failure – to me, his mom, his coach, his friends…himself!
I was afraid that if my son got cut (getting cut = epic FAIL) at such a young age he may give up basketball for good. Plus, I just simply didn’t want my kid to have to work through that pain, rejection and embarrassment of not making the team.
My mind immediately went into damage control mode – should I let him try out knowing the odds were against him? Should I convince him to wait and try next year after he had more time to practice and develop his skills to compete against 11 year olds?
Then, I read an article in HuffPo on Sara Blakely, billionaire founder of Spanx. In the article it talks about how her father encouraged the young Sara to talk about and even celebrate failures that happened every day in her life at school. He positively reinforced her efforts and demonstrated that “NOT TRYING” was the real failure.
That triggered a memory of another story I heard a while back about boy that went skiing for the first time. At the end of the day, he boasted to his father that he hadn’t fallen all day to which his father responded, well, then you didn’t try hard enough and you didn’t get any better. The son was deflated but the message was clear, falling isn’t failing. Not trying and pushing yourself is failing!
So when does a switch flip that tells us we can’t fail? A young baby stands and falls and stands and falls for days, weeks months, before it finally takes those first few precious steps. The entire time, adults are standing around, smiling, clapping, cheering and encouraging them to keep trying. And they do! They keep at it until they walk. So when does that stop? When do we start expecting our kids to be immediately perfect, or at least capable of doing a new activity? It’s ridiculous, right? But somewhere along the line we stop encouraging our kids to try, fail and try again and simply expect them to be good at something right away. If they are not, we assume they don’t have the talent for it and let them give up.
So, I had a talk with my son about the F-Word and explained that I would only be disappointed if he didn’t try out for the team. We would celebrate “the trying” and the effort and the risk-taking not whether some other random person/coach thought his skills were good enough…F-him and his opinion! It didn’t matter. Giving it a shot mattered. Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone mattered.
Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, my son made the team! So, I didn’t get a chance to work through the entire lesson with him but I know it will happen soon enough, especially if I keep encouraging him to push it to the next level.
Of course, I learned a lot too. I was always a bit nervous to write about these types of issues…people would think my writing sucked, change their opinion of me, hate it…whatever. Well, I am saying F-that….I am not f%#ing worried about the F-word anymore!