100,000 Tries Later: The Power of Believing in What’s Possible
We're back at the ice rink again. Fatima is doing an axel for about the 100,000th time that her coach looks at her and shakes her head and tells her no. Her left shoulder is falling down when she's up in the air. She helps Fatima with her form. Fatima goes and she sets up for this jump again. This time she lands it and her coach claps and smiles. She did it better this time she was fully rotated. Fatima goes and does the axel again. And then she does it again. And then she does it again. She's determined to perfect it so she goes and she does it again. This is the mindset it takes to master anything.
When we first started skating as a family. I had four daughters skating. They first started taking lessons because they wanted to learn how to stop so they could go faster.That was ten years ago. Fatima is the youngest and so she's my last with me. When they first decided they wanted to do ice skating competitions, only Sakina and Fatima wanted to compete. There was a coach at the lessons where the girls were taking classes. This coach saw the potential in my daughter's without any prejudice. She just saw my daughter skating and doing well at it. So she was the first one to encourage them to go for a competition. Not everybody was as encouraging. We faced a lot of criticism over my daughters being able to skate because of their clothes. The director of figure skating at the rink we were skating at refused at first to approve them for the competition. The coach, however, went to the referee for the competition, who went to the USFSA concerning my daughters competing. They approved them. Even with the USFSA approval the director was still denying my daughters entry. She was letting her own biases get in the way of my daughters. Finally, her boss, the director of the ice rink told her she WILL approve them. It was done and this was the beginning of a decade long work of passion and determination.
We kept persisting through. My daughters are not like anybody else but they are also the same as everybody else. They have ambitions too. At first my daughters always got last place. And then suddenly it's as if they started seeing my daughter skate and not just their clothes. Fatima started getting first place at competitions. Still with that persistence Fatima does it axel again and again.
Some people see her when she's skating and feels like she's doing the impossible. But it's not true. It is possible. With determination, persistence, and believing that it is possible can make even something that should be impossible happen.
What is it that you feel is impossible for yourself? What is it that you want? What do you really want? What do you really really want? Are you ready to do it for the 100th time? The 100,000th time? Thank you, fatima, for showing up for yourself, believing in yourself, and showing the world what it means to do what others say is impossible.
