Do It Until You Can't Get It Wrong

Never in my wildest dreams would I ever believe a 5 year old would teach me so much about life. Occasionally I feel like the child and it’s my little one who is wise beyond her years. Here’s the thing, most of us watch speeches, listen to talks, read books; talk the talk but rarely do our actions match our thoughts and or words.

I consider myself a pretty resilient person. I may go as far as calling it a strength of mine. However, what I’ve learned from my daughter doesn’t even put me in the same category as she is.

Let me give you a brief example. I bought my daughter a balance bike a while ago so she could learn balance. My hope was this would help her transition easily to a regular bike. I didn’t know the exact science behind it, but I figured we’d give it a try. The time came for her to get a “normal bike.” My only caveat was I told her she wasn’t allowed to put training wheels on the bike and had to wear a helmet, all things that she agreed to.

She took her bike outside and got on it. She fell. Quickly after the fall she got back on. Fell again. A third time she got back on the bike, any guesses to what happened? That’s right, she fell again. Now here’s my first point. Most of us, myself included, when it gets hard, would try again another day. Not my 5 year old. She got back on time after time right then and there. She wasn’t frustrated or mad. She kept herself together and continued to learn. Over the hour I watched her ride, she learned how to stop her bike, how to put her foot down when she wasn’t moving quickly enough, and to pedal the bike.

Finally after an hour of doing this all by herself, she rode her bike all the way down the street. Elated and getting it on video, I gave her a hug and asked if she wanted to come inside now. What I didn’t think would happen was her response. Simply she stated, “No. I’m going to keep practicing so I can balance better and learn to ride faster.”

I was stunned. It wasn’t good enough for her to just learn how to do something right. She was going to improve and practice until she could nearly master the trade.

This was a great life lesson for me. To watch such a small bit of tenacity go such a long way in a short amount of time. Amazing. Truly. Things are hard. We will fall, want to quit, throw in the towel. However, at that exact moment we should learn and discover why we fell, and then get right back up and try again. Most importantly, none of us should stop when we get it right. We need to keep at it until  we can no longer get it wrong.