My youngest son, Lachlan, is learning to play hockey. (Likely the cutest thing I have ever seen. A 4-year old with pads 2-sizes too big for him penguining around the ice.)
There are four levels he must go through before he gets into real hockey.
Level 1: Learn to fall and get back up on the ice on skates.
Level 2: Learn to fall while skating at a faster speed.
Level 3: Learn to use a hockey stick.
Level 4: Learn to move a puck around the ice.
The first two levels are focused on and around learning how to fall and being okay with falling.
As I have watched kids progress over the past 4 weeks the kids that learn to skate the fastest are the kids unafraid to fall and even make falling into an enjoyable game and art form.
I think if we started all new activities with this idea of it’s okay to fall/fail, it can be fun to fall/fail, and falling and failing are natural parts of the process we would have more fun, get better faster, and go for more.
Go forth and have fun failing at something today.
Brett “Falling More” Denton