We had a big lesson in our house this weekend. One of my boys absolutely loves watching sports, which I love because I too love watching sports. Well, in the last week I had mentioned that Serena was the best player in the whole world. So Friday we are sitting there and we see that Serena lost. "But Mommy, I thought she was the best in the whole world." And now came the lesson time. Yes, Serena lost. She is still the best in the world. Then I dropped the big bomb. Even the best baseball teams every year lose about 60 games per year. What?! Yep. 60 games. The best hitters in baseball get an out when they're at bat over 6 out of 10 times. What?! Yep.
The best fail. The best fail, A LOT. We hear about how many strike outs Babe Ruth had but do you take it to heart? Do you really hear it? If not, let me try it again. You MUST FAIL. If you are not failing you are not learning, and if you are not learning you are not growing, and if you are not growing success will be hard to come by. I fail all the time. Seriously. All the time. As a coach. As a mom. As a person just pushing myself to get out of my comfort zone. I say yes too much, sometimes not enough. I have to put myself in time out because otherwise my "easy going" mom style will turn into momzilla. If you ask my husband I fail in the kitchen...a lot less than I used, which brings me to the amazing thing about failure. The more you do it, the less you do it, until of course you push yourself to do it some more. Fail again and again at making omelets until you have it down and then you can start failing at an egg souffle.
So just a little lesson for you and my 3 year old. Don't be afraid to fail. Its scary and sometimes awful but sometimes its pretty great. Sometimes you don't fail when you think you will, just because you tried. What an amazing thing! My desire to teach my kids to try so hard and push themselves so hard that they fail is what pushes me to fail. I can tell them about Babe Ruth until I'm blue in the face but if mommy isn't willing to fail, how can I expect them to be.
So follow Serena's lead and get out there and fail. (And then come back next year and win the US Open.)