One of my very favorite things is having one on one conversations with people. It could be just sitting in the living room drinking coffee together, catching up on the latest news while driving in the car. Sometimes great conversations happen in group settings when you're able to focus in on one person and chat. Not matter the case I just love it. I like small group talks as well, but they're just not the same. I love the light hearted talks where we shoot the breeze, I love it when we laugh so hard I get a belly ache and my cheeks hurt. And then there are the deeper conversations where you learn more about one another, challenge each other and dig a little bit into what makes that person them. This has to be my favorite of all. Where you get to discover something new about the other person or even yourself.
Several weeks ago I was lucky enough to have one such conversation. While attending a group function I got to talking with a long time friend of mine. As we talked he asked a question that caught me off guard. He asked me "Michelle, what are you good at?" This is not a question that is easy for me to answer. I prefer to answer questions like "What do you enjoy doing? or What are some of your hobbies?" When answering either of these questions there is no fear of being found a fake. I can like to draw whether I am good at it or not, that's not the question. But to ask what I am good at felt very vulnerable. I thought about this for a moment and then responded "Connecting with people, baking, ...and writing." "That's interesting" he said, "because the order that you put those 'connecting, baking, and writing' is the same order of effort required to be good at them.
This simple discussion and the feelings in evoked have been things I have thought about over and over in the weeks since. Why, for example, did it make me so uncomfortable to admit things I thought I was good at? Immediately I remembered a scene from my high school years flashing through my mind. I was on the swim team from age10 to age 18. At first I was on the swim club and then later on the high school team. Unlike many sports the swim team is year round, five days a week. I took this more like options. Swim when you want, stay home when you don't. I averaged 2 - 3 times a week. I loved swimming and had many friends on the swim team, these are good memories. I wasn't the most determined swimmer, or the fastest, but I wasn't bad either. I had decent form and can swim for a long time. Although I wasn't amazing, I was a much better swimmer than my friends who just swam for fun and I was proud to be a swimmer. In high school we had around 70 swimmers, split up into Varsity and Junior Varsity, but in a more fluid manor. We all swam at the same time in the same pool and different ends of the pool, doing different work outs. The JV did something totally different than the Varsity, but their was a third group of about 6 -8 swimmers that did kind of a modified version of the Varsity practice. We still worked with the Varsity coach, Jason, the same coach I had for 8 of these 10 years. During swim meets the JV would do an event, just for fun, not for points, and then the Variety would swim the same event and the 1st ,2nd, and 3rd place finishers would get points for their school. I usually swam the JV events and preferred this, as I could usually win these events and given a choice I would rather win an easier event and earn no points than lose a harder event and still get no points. However, in order to letter in Varsity you needed to get at least 3rd place in a Varsity event, so Jason usually put me in a relay or something so I could letter. (At the time I didn't know this was how you earned a letter, but just the I usually swam JV but sometimes swam for Varsity.) It worked out well. However, my senior year came and toward the end of the season I still hadn't swam in a varsity event. He finally put me in one, but I had a bad case of bronchitis and though I came to the meet anyway I wasn't swimming well and had another friend swim in my stead not realizing this was my only chance to letter. (I found out about the system later.) That night we had an award ceremony where every senior is recognized. When my name came up I expected Jason to say a few words, but to my surprise it was the JV coach who spoke. What he said was something like this "Michelle....I don't really know her....she's graduating this year." I was mortified. Coach Ryan was someone I had never talked to, probably not even once. Although I was technically JV I had always worked with Jason. I didn't expect anyone to say what an amazing swimmer I was, but I do think I contributed to the team and after 10 years to hear something like this (and to not letter, when I always had before) was humiliating. Still sick I went home and slept through most of the next day. Mid afternoon I got a phone call from Jason apologizing for the mix up, but it was too late. My identity as a swimmer was shattered and I felt like a fraud. It wasn't until this recent conversation and thinking all this over that I realized why this had hurt so much. It seems I have always believed that If I say that I am good at something and then someone calls me on it and says I am not, than that is true. That I'm no good and need to stop kidding myself. It has taken almost 19 years to realize that this is not true. I don't become a good swimmer because someone says I am, neither do I become a bad swimmer because I am told I am. Swimming for me had never been about winning. It had been about enjoying swimming, being with friends, encouraging one another, and working hard. This had always been what made swimming a success for me. Yet in that moment I allowed someone who didn't know me to inadvertently make something that had been so positive in my life feel like a failure. I allowed that. All these years since whenever anyone mentioned me being a swimmer I was apologetic about it, feeling the need to say that I wasn't a very good swimmer. And this isn't true. I was a great swimmer, I wasn't the fastest, but that wasn't my goal, I was the swimmer I wanted to be, and a strong one at that.
So when my friend asked me what I was good at, I think I felt that in saying I'm good at baking or writing there might be someone who then would say "Really? You think you're good at that? Because you're not." And then it would be true. But now I realize that even if someone were to say that it would not necessarily make it true. However, when that fear comes up it makes me less likely to do these things I love, but choosing not to do them doesn't make me any better at them. In my head to be skilled at something meant it came effortlessly, but maybe I can be good at something and still have lots of room for growth. That means that I can be good at something and still have failures. The failures don't prove I'm bad, but give me the information I need to improve. Wow, I needed to know that. If we are so afraid to fail that we don't try then we will never be good at anything. Not only that, but we will miss out on some many positive experiences whether we ever become "good" at what we're doing or not.
The fear of failure paralyzes us and keeps us from growing. This is not where I want to be, and not where I want my kids to be. I want my kids to feel free to try and fail and grow. And so I must do the same.
What are lies that you have been believing in your life and what would it look like if you simply decided they weren't true?
