I grew up and still am an athlete. I’ve played tons of sports; baseball, lacrosse, tennis, track, skiing, volleyball – you name it. When I was in pre-k, my mom was offered a job as a gymnastics instructor and took it. At that point, I had already done gymnastics for a year or two, but my mom’s career influenced my elementary-school years to be spent in a gymnastics facility. Once I was able to stay home alone without my parents, I stopped taking classes on a regular basis; however, my mom continued to coach and my sister became a competitive gymnast. This may not be a surprise, but eventually I began coaching gymnastics myself.
By this time, I had learned a vast repertoire of skills. On top of that, I can’t even estimate the number of gymnastics meets I’ve sat through. I had developed an understanding and an eye for the technique and judging of the skills. Through past training, countless observations, and learning how to coach skills I was unfamiliar with, I applied what I told my students to do to myself. In my mind, the more skills I was able to do, the better and more effectively I could teach someone else.
This job enabled me to understand anything is possible if you put your mind to it. Also, I learned that converting knowledge to action results in great rewards. When I taught myself and executed a new skill based on my understanding of how to teach one, I would be flooded with accomplishment and pride. Let’s be real, gymnastics is a scary-ass sport; you are literally throwing your body against gravity and doing things you probably shouldn’t . There’s a overwhelming amount of mental strength involved, so when you can overcome various fears, you learn what you are truly capable of.
Our minds are more fluid than we think. In my opinion, if you want to be excel at gymnastics, you MUST have a stronger mind than body. The same holds true for obtaining any goal. In other words, if you break down the steps you must take to obtain a goal, you will have the building blocks on how to reach whatever it is you may desire. From there, all you have to do is execute.
I think many of us expect everything to be perfect or accomplished instantly; I’m guilty of it too! It’s up to us to take a step back and understand that great things do take time. We’re going to accomplish everything we want to as long as we continue to work at it. Looking back at my experiences so far, everything I haven’t excelled at have been things I didn’t allocate the proper amount of time and planning to be successful at. If you want to succeed at something, you must put in the effort to define the goal, break it down, and execute.
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On Tom Of The World 