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You Are Your Own Limitation by @Goodworkmyboy

Søren Birk

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Søren Birk

 

I have always enjoyed going on sunny holidays, to relax on the beach and enjoy the warmth and the seaside – it’s the only way to spend the vacation. 12 years ago, however, I was invited on a skiing holiday by all the lads. The only reason I accepted it was to spend time with them. Since then, I haven’t been on a single sunshine holiday and my passion for ski and snowboard has only gotten bigger, so much so that I’ve now spent 100 days on snow. With a break over the last couple of years, it was time to get a snowboard under my feet again. I took the easy and cheap solution this time, 4 hours in a snow dome here in London. No, it wasn’t the same experience, but it was still fun.

 

When I entered the queue to the lift the first time I felt nervous without knowing why. I then got a flashback to the first time I tried this type of lift, and as I remember I fell off it around 20 times before I learned how a goofy snowboarder should handle it. The first challenge was to get to the top of the mountain.

 

Back to the present, standing on the top of this “mountain” and preparing my body for the first ride down, I didn’t know if I should expect the unexpected or just relax and enjoy it. After 3-4 rides I was ready to enjoy it completely without any of these limiting thoughts. In other words, it was time to play around and do jumps and other tricks as I’m used to.

 

One of the unwritten rules if you want to create a new trick is not to be afraid of falling. But more important is how fast you can get up again. If you are lying too long in the snow it will melt and you will get wet and cold, so why not get up again as fast as you can?

 

In four hours I fell so many times that my pants cracked but I was still focusing on the next jump and trick. It still needed to be wilder, funnier and more challenging.

 

So the next question that popped up in my mind was, “do you learn the most when you are falling or when you are doing it right the first time?” If you put the focus on falling instead of succeeding, its inevitably to fall more often.  For me, to do a trick right, I close my eyes and go through the situation step by step, especially how to land the jump. After that, it’s more likely I’ll succeed.

 

There is a risk in every decision we are making in life. Sometimes its bigger, sometimes its smaller. But if you dwell too long at it you will limit yourself too much.

 

The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising everytime we fall.

― Nelson Mandela

 

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