Lessons From A Swim Meet

It’s day three of a 4-day swim meet.

I’m one of the chaperones for my son’s team, and we leave the hotel at 6:15 a.m. each morning for the pool.

Breakfast doesn’t start early enough at the hotel for the kids to eat before they leave for the pool, so one of the other chaperones and I have been going to Sheetz, a gas station/fast food/convenience store, right across the parking lot from the hotel.

There are around 20 swimmers who go to the pool each morning.

We have a group text and the kids text their breakfast orders to the head chaperone. She gets all the orders put into a cohesive list and then she texts that to us and we head over to Sheetz and place all the orders on the little kiosk thingy, then get all the food, bring it back to the lobby, hand it out to the kids and then we get on the bus and hit the road.

Here was today’s breakfast order:

The first day we did this we had no idea what we were doing.

Figuring out how to place the orders on the computer thing took a couple minutes and I had to get help from the manager to order a custom wrap. She whizzed through the steps and I knew I was never gonna remember what she did.

We got the orders placed, but not everything was labeled and figuring out who got what was a little bit of a mess and it was kind of chaotic passing food out.

We also left at 5:15 AM to get the food and realized we didn’t need to get up that early.

So on day 1 we got the job done but not without some stress and inefficiency and we learned a few things.

On day 2 we gave ourselves a little more time to sleep since we were so early the first day, and we headed over to Sheetz around 5:45 AM.

The other chaperone brought a Sharpie with her to label food.

I still needed help from the manager because I couldn’t remember the steps for the custom order but now I’ve got it.

We got the bags of food labeled and organized better than we did in Day 1.

But leaving at 5:45 wasn’t quite early enough and it took a little longer for orders to come out and it was a rush to hand out the food and still a little chaotic.

Tomorrow is the last day of the meet.

Tomorrow is the last day of ordering breakfast.

Tomorrow it should run pretty smoothly because we are learning as we go.

So often we put pressure on ourselves to do things perfectly the first time we do them OR we don’t even do “the thing” at all because we are afraid of messing up.

The only way to figure out how to do something effectively is TO DO IT.

Every repetition teaches you something.

Every time you do “the thing” you learn something else so you can do better the next time.

This is how you learn to crawl and walk and communicate and ride a bike and parent and swim and take a test and read and use technology and to do EVERYTHING.

You can be paralyzed by fear because you’re afraid you’ll mess up or not do things as well as you could.

But there is a different way of looking at things.

Because you can also try something knowing that everything is a learning process and the first time you do anything is just a starting point.

A baseline.

The more you practice it the more you learn, the more unanticipated glitches you navigate, and the better you get.

Have FUN the first time you do something!

Embrace the stuff that didn’t go the way you wanted it to go or anticipated it would go and adjust.

Enjoy the process of learning. Enjoy the process of improving. Enjoy the process growing.

Remember that you are not as experienced or strong or wise as you will be tomorrow. Or the day after that. Or the day after that!

Oh, and one more thing.

You know how your kids don’t all start walking or talking or sleeping through the night or pooping in the potty at the same time?

This doesn’t end once you turn 18 or 21 or 50.

All humans “get” things on their own timeline. At any age.

Stop comparing yourself to other people.

Stop expecting yourself to (metaphorically) learn to walk as quickly as your neighbor or friend or sister or coworker or mother or whoever.

You’re on your own timeline.

You’ll figure it out at your own pace.

There’s no failure when you’re trying.

The only failure to succeed is really when you make the decision that you’re not even gonna try at all.

 

We discuss changing how you view failure on Day 2 of

Not Your Average FREE Challenge.

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