You are capable

I am notoriously bad for quitting things that I’m not instantly good at.

I did so many clubs when I was a kid – horse riding, karate, swimming, tap, ballet, jazz, singing, gymnastics…the list goes on.

But I wasn’t naturally good at any of them and shortly after the realisation I’d think SCREW THIS!

My nan trying to teach me to knit ended in tears, my school exams ended in a blasé shrug, my ex boyfriend trying to teach me a new language ended with a lot of expletives. I’m sure there’s many more.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that I haven’t got any talents. It’s just that up until very recently, I wasn’t willing to broaden them. I wasn’t willing to put in persistent practice and patience to improve at something that I quite frankly sucked at. I wanted to be good and I got pretty stroppy if I wasn’t and what made that fiery anger and stubbornness burn even brighter was when I saw someone else that was better than me at it.

What I didn’t appreciate though, is that the person who was better than me at it, could well have been doing it for months, or even years longer. They’d probably already gone through the sweat and tears and dedicated their time to being good at it.

Another thing that hindered me, was being embarrassed at not being good at something straight away. As if anyone expected me to be or even cared!

So I just wanted to say:

Remember, you are so much more capable than you give yourself credit for.

You might not be good at it straight away, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be bad at it forever.
If you want something enough, you’ll be willing to put in all those hours perfecting it, and it will pay off.
You might not suddenly wake up one morning and be an expert, but slowly and surely, you’ll notice improvements until one day you can do it with ease.