Believe

       Believe- vi. to have trust or faith; an expectation.

       Nestled in Webster's is a very powerful word: Believe. Ironically it is between the word belie which is to misrepresent or prove false and the word belittle which is to disparage. Belie and belittle are two powerful words opposite of believe. How many times have we been belittled or told we couldn't do something compared to how many times we've been told we can? Our beliefs have the power to provide our own self fulfilling prophesies.



        Recently I was in an elementary school, shadowing a teacher that I will be subbing for this year. She wanted to have me in and show me her classroom and get to know the children for a day before I came in to be their substitute.

       During the course of the day the teacher had a very powerful teaching moment. She gathered the group of eight year-olds to the carpet and read them a story called You are Special, by Max Lucado. The cliff notes version of the story goes something like this: Once upon a time there was a land of wooden people. The people of this land would give each other stars for having smooth wood skin or being pretty. If you had a special talent you would receive stars.Conversely, the wooden people decided to give dots to those that had rough wooden skin or chipped paint. They gave dots to those who struggled; maybe they couldn't run or jump so they got dots. The Wemmicks(wooden people) were either covered in stars or dots so it was obvious for everyone to see how they rated.

       One of the Wemmicks named Punchinello was really struggling. He was covered in dots, it seemed everything he did got him a dot. He soon started to believe that he was not worthy of anything. One day he met a girl named Lucia, who had no dots or stars. He was curious how she managed to avoid the labels. She told him to go see Eli the Wemmicks maker. She explained that she saw Eli every day.
       Punchinello took Lucia's advice and went to see  Eli. He told Eli his story and how he couldn't stop getting dots. Eli told him that the labels would not stick if he quit believing what the Wemmicks said. He told Punchinello how special he was in his own way and that he was not a mistake. Eli said that as soon as he quit believing what the Wemmicks said the dots would fall away, just like Lucia's had. Punchinello was skeptical at first but decided to give it a try. Guess what? The dots fell away.
       I'm often asked how I get through an endurance race. I believe; it's really that simple. Triathlon is hard work don't misunderstand me. I have to train and put my time into three sports to get to the finish line. Training aside, I have to dig deep into my soul each race. Some days it is hard to motivate myself to train. I have to believe that I can do it. I believe that success in triathlon and success in life is positive thinking.
        Less than a year ago I decided to build on my writing skills and start building my portfolio. I started writing a personal blog,writing a series of short stories, and writing to magazines to get articles published. I have had many rejections and  negative comments related to this goal. Finally, after about seven months, I got an article published in Smart Magazine. I was blessed with an offer to write this blog about triathlon shortly after my article was published. These are baby steps, but still successes that I am very proud of. I believed , put forth a plan, worked hard and was able to achieve some of my goal. I still have a long way to go, but I am encouraged.
       The teacher ended her lesson with a discussion about how each of her students are special to her. She explained that she'll be grading their papers and sometimes the grades on their papers might not be good, but she encouraged them not to be discouraged if they did get a bad grade. She reminded them that hard work and believing in their abilities was the most important thing  they could accomplish. They sat quietly with bright eyes taking  in all this information.
       I remembered my  fifth grade teacher, Mrs. Kodish, who changed my life. She pulled me aside one day and told me she knew I wasn't reaching my full potential. She knew I was capable of  producing better work, but explained  I had to believe  in order to make it happen. She was right. I had always been a kid who struggled in school and after Mrs. Kodish's  talk I began to get A's and B's and continued through college.

       I fought back tears after listening to You are Special. We all have special gifts. We all have struggles as well, but I believe that if we tap into what truly makes us special we can be free of dots.

Thanks to HydroWorx for believing in me!

Tri on Friends!

Kelly

Please view the link below to see what a beautiful story You Are Special is:)

<object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Scj3A1cLVzY?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Scj3A1cLVzY?fs=1&amp;hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>