The Magic of Mastery

I recently watched a video of someone mastering U-turns on her motorcycle.

She did 100 U-turns, every day, for 30 days.

That's what mastery takes.

Not doing something 100 times a day.

Not doing it every day.

Not even doing it for 30 days.

It’s the willingness to get to know something from the inside out.

When we see a master at work, what they’re doing seems almost magical.

Because we don’t see the time they’ve spent figuring things out.

When you watch this video, you can see the underlying skills that this person is learning.

And then you see that it's not magical at all.

It's rather mundane.

Breaking things down into learnable pieces.

Getting to grips with them, one by one, until you can weave them all together.

That’s fine for physical challenges like riding a bike, but what about something you can’t touch?

Can you master emotions?

Yes, it turns out.

There are simple skills you can learn to help handle emotions like fear and anger.

Like learning to see emotions clearly so they don't take you by surprise.

Learning to balance your nervous system so you don’t collapse or explode.

And learning to take positive action guided by intelligent kindness.

Breaking it down like this makes it doable.

It’s even weirdly enjoyable.

It all depends on the willingness to try.

Of course, it's not always easy, but we don't have to do it alone.

During the 30 days, the person who mastered U-turns had a lot of help.

Again and again, she turned to trusted advisors, friends and even passers-by.

We’re not in this alone.

Want to find out more? Feel free to send me an email or schedule a free conversation about mindfulness coaching.