Cheer Your People On

If you've raised children you may remember the days when your baby grew into a toddler and failed at its first few attempts to walk. Did you scold or punish your child for failing? Of course not! You cheered them on because you remembered that you had to learn to walk too. You congratulated and encouraged them to try again. Then they kept trying, grew more confident, and one day they got it right. It was part of the learning process, so you understood it perfectly. No problem.

That being said, why do we beat ourselves up for failing the first few times at trying something new? Most likely, we didn't "get the hang of" something new as soon as we thought we should. We fool ourselves into thinking, "other people got it quicker than I did, maybe something's wrong with me because I didn't catch on as fast as they did..." No, nothing's wrong with you; it's a normal part of the learning process, just like when you learned to walk as a child. To think otherwise is unrealistic and foolish. We compare ourselves to other people who aren't our standard, people who are different than we are. What we need to understand is that everybody operates at a different speed, a different pace. No two people are alike.  Life is a marathon, not a sprint; we all run a different race. Believing you "should" learn to do something the same way someone else did is like saying, since all the runners began the race at the same time, they should run the race the same way everybody else does, and cross the finish line at the same time, too.  Don't kid yourself, we both know that is not gonna happen.

It is not strange to feel vulnerable, awkward, and a bit exposed from time to time. It can seem embarrassing and somewhat intimidating not to be in control of a situation. Let me give you an example. Several years ago, I coached a youth baseball team. On the morning of our first game I asked if anybody was excited. They all shouted, "YEAH!!!" of the top of their lungs. Then I asked, "Is anybody nervous..?" I got silence, and some awkward shuffling of feet. One of the coaches piped in, "It's okay, being nervous just means you want to play well," which helped to relax the boys up a bit, so I chimed in, "What you're feeling is called 'first inning jitters. Now I've got some good news, and I've got some GREAT news. Anybody want to hear it?"  They all nodded their heads, so I continued:

"The good news is, first inning jitters are perfectly normal. There's nothing wrong, just like Coach said, it just means you want to do well when you go on the field. But here's the great news...when you get on the field and start playing...IT GOES AWAY..." The look of relief on their faces spoke volumes; they got excited all over again. After running onto the field and playing an inning or two, and I heard one of the kids say, "My first inning jitters are GONE..!!" He was excited, and so was the rest of the team. They played well, and the won the game with relative ease. All it took was a well placed word of encouragement, and the kids took it from there.

Cheer your people on. Encourage them when they stumble, help them up when they fall. That's the time they feel most vulnerable and unsure of themselves, and need it most. Let your people know you believe in them, that you support them no matter what happens. Before you know it they'll be able to stand, to walk, to run, and take flight. You can never tell the power of a kind word spoken at the right time.

Who knows..? You could become the wind beneath their wings.

That's all for now, gotta run.  Until we meet again, remember:

Keep it simple...  See ya!

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