The saying 'everyday is a school day' is definitely the saying that resonates with me for 2014. From childhood into our teenage years, into our 20s (and that is where I must stop at the very young age of 29, I cannot yet comment on the 30s!) we are constantly learning, our formal learning can stop for some in school, others in college and the rest, well then it never stops. I remember vividly learning how to tie my shoe laces, cycle my bike and learn how to Rollerblade.
The laces came easy but my balance let me down on both the bike and the blades, but as my older sister was a pro at both I knew I would have to simply work at these. I was determined at 7 but through my teenage years, I didn't really feel like working at anything and obviously felt that everything should just happen and naturally enough when they didn't, I just became good at hanging round!
Now with all my infinite wisdom and 29 years I know that everything in this life that you want you must work and work incredibly hard at and for. I used to think I was good at working at my weaknesses but really what I would do was work at what I was good at and try and become great at that and completely neglect the things I found the toughest.
Like in School I was and am so bad at maths, but one day we started learning Simultaneous Equations and I got them, I understood them and this was a huge moment for me. So I would just do these questions, still asking for help but knowing I could impress with my ability to get them right every time- this was a small little confidence booster for me. The following week we moved onto to Algebra and lets just say maths was put on the back foot and the glory days of the simultaneous equations were now just a fond memory!
About 3 years ago I began running/walking, graduating to running, slowly building up to a 3km, 5km 10km, 10 miles then doing adventure races, Gael Force from here I started training with weights and kettle bells and then everything changed- I realised the potential in my body and how rewarding it was to be truly healthy. It spilled over into every aspect of my life giving a positive outlet, building a strong mental character and mindset and allowed me to encourage a very positive image of where I wanted my life to go and who exactly I wanted to be.
Being self employed brings with it different pressures and I fully credit my healthy lifestyle to my ability to tackle all projects head on and always feel that anything is possible- even when the chips are down and you really don't know how things can turn around, they always do and a strong positive voice will always offer more than a drowning negative one.
Being challenged by things now doesn't give me a feeling of 'uhhh' or 'why me' it just makes me think I got to put in the time to get this and I like that. Imagine going through life and just breezing through excelling at everything first- where is the fun in that!
I sometimes would like to go back to my 15 year old self and encourage her to try harder, be more involved and tell her that she can in fact do it- but she will have to work for it. Maybe though these are the life lessons we learn with age so we can fully appreciate the age and time we are in for exactly who you are at that time and what it is you are willing to do to achieve your goals.
So as I continue on my quest for a handstand I can feel through my daily practice of kicks, getting used to being upside down and trying to get a stretch in my painfully tight hamstrings that it will click. Maybe the best thing won't even be the handstand itself but the fact that I really couldn't do it and because I worked, worked and worked again at it, I, yes me made it happen.