I had the blessed opportunity to participate with my mentor teacher, Mrs. Cariaga, in a Freshmen Boot Camp. Honestly, it was so much fun! I am feeling so blessed for the chance I have to work not only with these students, but also with the wonderful teachers here at this school! They are all so cool and truly treat me like an authority figure!
The Freshmen Boot Camp was like Get Connected on a much smaller scale. Instead of it being three days, it was about three and a half hours. We fed them, gave them a run down on what was happening, and then split them off into groups of fifteen to twenty students. In those groups they would travel to different stations and hear different talks given by some of the faculty. I, of course, was with Mrs. Cariaga. For the basis of her seminar she used the acronym S.O.S. which stands for "Starting Off Strong". She had the students listen to a TED talk by a man named Neil Pasricha. His talk is entitled The 3 A's of Awesome (I highly recommend listening to it). He started a blog called 1,000 Awesome Things. This story he shares in his TED talk is that he had (and does have) a really good life. However, in 2008 things started going south. Some big things in his life happened and he became kind of frustrated. So, instead of looking to the negative he started looking for the little things in life that are awesome! A few of the examples from the blog are: finding money you didn't know you had lost, sleeping in new bed sheets, illegal naps, rain hair, and so many others! These are all things that we take for granted every day! There is so much good in the world, but we don't see it because we decide to focus on the bad! Stop it!
Pasricha gives 3 A's of Awesome and they are: Attitude, Awareness, and Authenticity. He speaks a little bit about all of them, but my favorite was when he talked about Authenticity. He shared the story of a 6' 5", 300 pound NFL player "Rosie" Greer. "Rosie" was part of the "Fearsome Foursome" and you did not want to go up against him in a game! However, he had another passion besides playing football; needlepoint! He didn't try to hide the fact either, he was very open about his love for needlepoint! Mrs. Cariaga's point with all of this is that we need to be confident with who we are. Just because we like something that our friends don't doesn't mean we need to hold back! You are wonderful just the way you are!
Mrs. Cariaga shared a quote by Denis Waitley that says: "It's not who you are that holds you back, it's who you think you are not." I've been thinking a lot about that. This week one of my goals has been to get into the habit of going to the gym again. I decided I would start jogging again, but I would never call myself a jogger. Mrs. Cariaga and I were talking and she was talking about how she's training for a half marathon. I commented on how "I could never do that; I'm not a runner." This morning when I went to the gym there were some sisters there doing some form of aerobics (I saw them the other morning when I went to the gym as well). The first they said when they saw me was, "Look, it's the runner! How are you this morning?"
I spoke to them for a moment before I started my jog. As I started my warm-up I thought about the Waitley quote. Because I think I'm not a runner, I haven't really tried to do it. I didn't think I could run at all! So, I made a goal right then and there! I was going to run today; not jog, but run! I started getting excited and I could hardly wait! I did it! I ran and it felt amazing! I wish I had thanked the sisters for saying such a positive thing for me. It gave me the chance to really open my mind to another side of me that I can be, if I believe I can be.
It doesn't matter what aspect in our lives that we feel this, but we cannot let our "I'm not" thoughts hold us back! There's a difference between "I'm not good enough" and "I can do better". The first is hopeless; it is telling you something you are not. It's negative, and negative thoughts don't encourage action to move forward and change. "I can do better" is positive! It shows action and the desire to improve! That's what we want! I know that, in the past, I have said that I'm "not good enough at blank." But that just isn't true! I can improve and work in areas that I can do better in! There's always room for improvement, we just need to obtain the desire to do so.
No comments:
Post a Comment