Get Out of Your Own Damn Way

Part II in the Blog A Week Series

I'm just getting this entry in under the wire. Whew! Don't want to blow the whole blog-a-week thing on week 2. That is just not on. So, here we go. I am a moderately successful person in the world, I think. Sure, there are still thousands of things I have yet to do, but I'm doing all right: friends, jobs, hobbies, extracurriculars. Maybe if I continue to work really hard, I'll become a grand success. And if I do, I think I'll write a self-help book. I already have the name picked out: Get Out of Your Own Damn Way. And it'll have a kicky subtitle like: Removing Obstacles to Your Own Success.

Here's the thing: as an educator, I see people getting in their own way all the time. And it's frustrating, especially when you see it happen to people who could really make a difference in the world. Wasted potential is almost as bad as wasted time, but wasted time you can never get back. It breaks my heart that some of my students never got encouragement when they were younger, and they've suffered all of their lives because of it. And now, instead of just doing the things they want to do in life, they have to spend years finding ways over or around the junk that blocks their progress. Sometimes I think I was called to do my job because I was given so much encouragement by my parents. As if they trained me to do the very thing that I'm doing. Not the music part, but the encouragement part. The nurturing patience part. The love part.

Helping folks reach their potential is a topic that's always on my mind, so imagine my surprise when I read about this very thing in an article in The Key Reporter this week (this is Phi Beta Kappa's quarterly publication). The article was taken from a lecture by Richard Leo Enos from Texas Christian University. He uses Michelangelo and Victor Hugo as examples of people who were driven by some unseen force to use their talents to the full. What made these guys go out there and give it their all, while most of us let time pass us by? Some, like Greek educator, Isocrates believed that a smart and successful student has three traits: talent, the willingness to practice, and experience. Talent, well that's a given. Although baseball great Lou Gehrig maintained that he wasn't born with any more talent for baseball than anyone else; it was practice that made the difference for him. Practice, he said, turns failure into success. Experience is what happens when you actually try. There's no substitute for it. Problem is, a lot of people don't even get to that stage. Or they think they're not ready for it so they practice their life away, not realizing that at some point, you need to try whether or not you feel ready.

In his lecture, Enos cites Aristotle who said that in addition to talent, a person has dynamis, or power. It's this power that allows people to take risks and make that leap. Most people don't tap into this power. Or they wait for the signal to come from outside, not realizing that it's already there inside of them. Enos concludes by saying that the three things necessary for success are: hard work, effort, and risk-taking.

To these, I'd add attitude. Attitude turns failure into success (you learned from it, didn't you?). Attitude also turns anxiety into excitement, obstacles into challenges, risks into adventures. I don't know how to get my students to understand that they too can be successful. The best I've figured out so far is telling them what I know and modeling this behavior. When I figure out more concrete methods, I'll write my book.

This could be a scary time for me, newly single, on my own for the first time in forever. But I'm trying to take on the challenges as they come. Driving to places I've never been before (and getting lost), trying to fix things that I've never fixed, trying not to blame myself for every disaster. And it's all about my attitude, I think.

A song from the musical Wicked keeps running through my head. It's "Defying Gravity," and the song starts out, "Something has changed within me/ Something is not the same." Well, that's for sure. A few lines later, it goes on, "Too late for second-guessing/ Too late to go back to sleep./ It's time to trust my instincts/ Close my eyes and leap."

So that's it. That's what I tell my students and what I tell myself. The time for overthinking is over. Push through the moment of doubt. There's something great on the other side, so do it: close your eyes and leap.

~Hero