I did a bit of reading over the weekend and fell in love with this little nugget…
“At the start of an endeavor, we need encouragement and freedom to figure out what we enjoy. We need small wins. We need applause. Yes, we can handle a tincture of criticism and corrective feedback. Yes, we need to practice. But not too much and not too soon. Rush a beginner and you’ll bludgeon their budding interest. It’s very, very hard to get that back once you do."
GRIT by Angela Duckworth
‘Encouragement and freedom to figure out what we enjoy’ – YES! Oh my goodness, very yes! When it comes to nutrition, I hear a lot of this “I know that I should eat ____, but I end up eating ____”.
When it comes to physical activity, I hear a lot of this “I know I should exercise but I just can’t make myself do it”.
I see this as a mindset challenge. Do you really think you’re going to be motivated to do something because you ‘should’? Hard NOPE.
But if you give yourself the freedom to figure out how to turn something that you should do into something that you want to do, even if the outcome doesn’t seem quite as beneficial, won’t you be further along in the end?
After all, the benefit of doing something fairly decent, that you ENJOY, consistently will pay off way more than never doing something that you should do.
Do you follow me?
‘Yes, we need to practice. But not too much and not too soon.’ – Also very YES.
Practice isn’t just for sport. It isn’t just for learning an instrument or a new skill.
It takes practice to eat for enjoyment and for health at the same time. LOTS of practice. It’s not something that comes naturally. It is not something that is easy in our culture… (you know, the culture of adding salt, sugar, and fat to everything to make it taste so incredible and keeps us coming back for more).
So, give yourself the opportunity to practice a little at a time. An extra vegetable here. A little less sugar there.
There is so much more that I love about this quote, so I’m going to come back to it more next week.
Stay tuned next Monday morning.
Have the best week!