True grit

I’ve never been someone who found physical things easy. At school I could ace a chemistry test but completely miss a netball thrown right at me. It became easy to inhabit that space of “the person who’s rubbish at PE” because I didn’t have to try. I focussed on the things I found easy.

But somewhere along the line of doing things I found easy, I found that wasn’t enough to satisfy me. I needed to find a way to do things I found difficult if I was really going to fulfil my potential. But the more I cared, the more passion and potential I had, the more I seemed to get in my own way.

And it was physical activity that helped me find the way through that.

Windsurfing first. I lost count of the number of times I fell off a windsurf board, though my scraped knees told the tale.

Monoskiing was even worse, spending expensive hours faceplanting into the sea without ever getting going.

But curiously that was OK. I didn’t mind failing. After all, I was the person who was rubbish at PE, my ego wasn’t invested in succeeding!

And that gave me the freedom to keep trying until I did get better. To the point where my windsurfing instructor gave me a plastic pot of gravel as a “True Grit” award. And my first successful monoski was a rush like no other!

I’ve taken on lots of physical challenges since. And in doing so I have found how rewarding it can be to do things you found difficult – and actively start chasing that rush.

I still find it easier to challenge myself with things I don’t care about than with things that matter to me, like coaching.. But I am practicing, and the more I do it, the easier it becomes to seek out challenges! Because when you do something difficult that you care about, the satisfaction is even greater.

What challenges are waiting for you to apply a little grit to overcome? And what might the rewards be?