Week 7 Task: Learning to Navigate the Learning Curve

This is an exercise in encouragement. Faced with doing something new, we often forget we have successfully done many “somethings” old.  Take pen in hand and list 10 things you have learned to do despite your doubt they could be mastered.

– Julia Cameron

As you all know that we are recording our new Theme Song.   I have done some crazy things but singing has been the craziest. The truth is I can’t sing at all!  but that did not stop me, I was excited about recording our theme song.  I believe that having my chicks there supporting and encouraging me, and having our music muse there making me sound decent gave me the courage to do it and enjoy it.

Here is my list of 10 things I have leaned to do despite my doubts.

1. Run a Triathlon – Who though at 40ish something I could love this sport.
2. Buddha Center to learn how to meditate– I learned to quite my mind which was impossible for me, and has helped me deal with hard situations.
3. Accounting – WOW!  Never went to school for this and it has come naturally to me even though I really don’t enjoy it.
4. Writing – I’m not a very good writer.  But blogging has forced me to at least give it a try.
5. Videography – Even though I’m still learning.  I really enjoy capturing great moments on video.  And without it I would not be able to video blog the chicks.
6.  Going back to school – This is big.  I have been debating this for many years and questioning myself if I could go back and have the patience to do this.  Well I could say now that I’m doing great and enjoying every minute of it.
7.  Reiki Practitioner – Took Level 1 and Level 2 classes and has really helped me.
8.  Public Speaking – Ohhhhh! How I hate to speak in public.  But at my 5K Mercado Run I was forced to give a speech.  OK, it was not that bad and I wasn’t really forced. I did have some blocking moments in which I had to close my eyes when announcing the charity organization to the group, in which was the most important part of course.
9. Breast Feeding – Never though I could do this and was the best experience of my life.
10. Driving Stick Shift – I needed a car when going to college and someone was selling their Jeep for a good price.   I didn’t want to say that I couldn’t drive a Stick Shift, because I wanted the car so bad.  I learned on the way home from work with a friend telling me what to do.  I almost gave her a heart attack.

What are your 10 things?

Unclear Path

I have to admit that I love the feeling of not knowing where something is going to take me.

It’s like that feeling on a new roller coaster that you have never ridden, standing in line and your heart is beating out of your chest and your palm is sweating with excitement of not knowing what to expect.  You just know that you are going to love it.   After the ride you feel exilerated and happy and you want that feeling again.  So, you get back on and even though you loved it, it is not that same feeling you had the first time before getting on.

That’s how I felt when I did my first Sprint Triathlon.

I had never run in my life.  I had been aerobic instructor in my early college years and was in a swimming team during High School.  But running and sweating was not my idea of fun.  One day, one of my employee said that he was going to do the 5K, and something inside me clicked, kinda like what our first guest chick said regarding her experience about photography https://4chicks.wordpress.com/2011/06/24/our-first-guest-chick/.  It just clicked.  Well that is how I felt.   So instead of trying to train for a 5K, I decided to up the ante and do a sprint triathlon.  I download a free training program and started training.  At first the running for me was hard, remember I had never really ran.  I just started walking 5 minutes and running for 1 minute till almost at the end of my training I was able to run the whole 3.1 miles.

When the day came for the Triathlon I had that amazing feeling like before getting on a roller coaster.  I was excited and scared at the same time.  I could not stop going t0 the bathroom because my stomach was not cooperating with me.   I remember telling myself “what am I thinking, am I crazy”?   But I will never forget what the organizer of the event said as we all stood knee high in the lake before the swim.  “For all the 1st timers, I know that you are scared but I can garantee you, that the fear will leave once you start swimming”.  I remember telling myself “year right”.  And than I heard the horn.  There was no turning back now.  At first I was hyper ventilating and thinking “I need to stay calm and breath just swim like you have been practicing and enjoy the ride”.  Ohhh how amazing it felt when I was able to let go of the fear and just enjoy it.  After the swim I felt energized and got on my bike as happy as I can be.  Got back to my transition area and dropped the bike off and ran.  And I will never forget coming around the bend and hearing people scream with excitement and finding myself getting emotional as I ran to the finish line. I DID IT!  What a Day!

Now let me tell you that I have done a few 5k’s and a half marathon after that first Sprint Triathlon.  But I have never been able to recapture that feeling from that day.  And I realize that it was that feeling of that unclear path not knowing where something is going to take me.  Will I fail? Will I succeed?  and than to find out that you succeeded was an amazing feeling.

So, I wonder is it fear or the final journey of my Documentary that hold me back from finishing it.  Maybe a little of both.   But this I know, that you need faith as you venture through the unclear path.  Going through the unclear path is to take risk, make mistakes and sometimes fail.

Their are 3 things you need  to know as you go though your creative journey is have an Illusion, Desire, and Courage”.   Here I am in my 40’s trying something that I have never experienced in my life. Was I being delusional?  Was I crazy? Was I going through a midlife crises?  But I knew that I had the desire to prove something to myself.  And had the courage not to just speak of it, or want it, but to actually do it.

So, I leave you with this poem from the Apple campaign.

Here’s to the Crazy Ones!

The misfits.

The rebels.

The troublemakers.

The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently.

They’re not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.

You can praise them, disagree with them, quote them,
disbelieve them, glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them.

Because they change things.

The invent.  They imagine.  They heal.
They explore.  They create.  They inspire.
They push the human race forward.

Maybe they have to be crazy.

How else can you stare at an empty canvas & see a work of art?
Or, sit in silence & hear a song that’s never been written?
Or, gaze at a red planet & see a laboratory on wheels?

We make tools for these kinds of people.

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius.

“Because the people who are crazy enough to think they
can change the world, are the ones who do.”

Poem By: Apple Computers, Inc.©