Motivation To Tackle The Scary Thing In 2020
Over the holidays my family of four went on a ski vacation to Snowshoe Mountain in West Virginia. We don't often do these types of trips, so this was an exciting adventure. My kids hadn't skied in over three years, so they were true beginners. We decided to put them in two full days of ski school and then ski together as a family on the third day.
Day 1 of ski school we stopped by a couple of times to see how they were doing. By 2pm they were still on the bunny slope. Carly, my 10 year old, was going straight down in a snow plow. She was sending us the "look", like, get me the heck out of here. Griffin, my eight year old, was very hesitantly going down the bunny slope with his arms stuck out to the side like a scarecrow. They appeared to be doing ok at best.
That evening they lobbied hard to get out of Day 2 of ski school, saying how boring it was and how they didn't learn anything. They finally won us over after we hemmed and hawed for hours.
We were nervous going out with them the next morning. Carly especially does not take well to instruction from her parents, so how was this going to go exactly? We laid down some ground rules and headed out - straight past the bunny slope to the full mountain.
And you know what? They both did beautifully. Given the space and the better conditions and the warmer temperatures (ski school was on the absolute coldest part of the mountain) they flourished. They each found their own groove. They improved by leaps and bounds over those two days and their confidence soared along with their skill.
Sometimes you need to leave the bunny slope before you think you're ready. The mountain seems pretty scary when you're standing at the top looking down. You wonder whether you have the courage. You question whether you're good enough. You see expert skiers racing down and think you'll never get there.
I believe that you can. Whatever the mountain represents in your life, I know you can find your way down. Maybe it's a diagnosis or the loss of a loved one or healing old wounds from childhood or finding yourself again after getting so far away from who you really are. It's scary to get started when you see how far down you have to go, but feeling that freedom and possibility while the wind swooshes by is within your reach.