Be Well: The Power of 'Not Yet' - Failure through the eyes of Mrs. Belt

In a recent assembly,  as students had just received results from their first semester final exams and were embarking on a new semester, I asked them to think about the growth mindset popularized by the research of Carol Dweck.  It seemed like a timely reminder for her idea of ‘not yet’ and it caused me to reflect on the ‘not yet’ events of my own life.

When I was in high school,  my youth group leaders decided that we should go on a ski trip to Lake Louise.  This was going to be fantastic, I thought. I would have the opportunity to try this totally awesome activity, an activity not popular with my family and one that I could not arrange on my own at that point in my life. So, the weekend was planned, the 80’s style ski outfit borrowed and off we went to the mountains.  After being fitted with boots, skis and poles, we traversed to the top of the starter slope for a very brief lesson by our youth leaders. I was ready to ski! But, what I thought was readiness for the slopes turned out to be more falling than skiing, more out of control panic rather than measured snowplough turns through the snow.  Then to cap it all off was the infamous fall from the T-bar. 

Long story short, four decades later, I have been to ski hills in the summer months for leisure events, including mountain biking and as a beautiful backdrop for a family wedding.  I have even tried out A-riding, a stand up variation of mountain biking (loved it!). But in all these years, I have never returned to the adventure of alpine skiing; as far as downhill skiing goes, I am a failure.  That one not-so-great experience began a trajectory that prevented me from embracing this popular winter past-time. Yet, I sometimes catch myself wondering, “ if only. . . “ Perhaps the advice I gave to my high school students is the best advice I can give myself – alpine skiing?  A failure perhaps or maybe, just, ‘not yet.’ You never know when you might see me on the slopes; but for now, I think I will just sit by the fire with a good book and be totally okay with that.