You will never manage that!

I watched a little boy yesterday trying to get himself up onto a wall. It was not a wall of any great height so the young lad was not going to come into to much bother or injury if he did not manage to get up. At the worst, he might bump his knee. The first attempt he almost made it he just had to get the second foot about an inch or so higher. The second attempt he again got very close to achieving his aim. His third attempt was cut short by the appearance of his mother who in no uncertain terms told him to stop. It was she told him dangerous and anyway he could never manage it. I was almost one hundred percent certain he would have made in one or two further attempts.

I walked away with a certain amount of sadness for that little boy. What he had learned was that goals often cannot be achieved. My mothers favourite saying it seemed to me was you will never manage that. Said often enough and we can begin to believe that it is, in fact, the case. I knew that school was never going to be easy for me and my mother constantly telling me that this was, in fact, the case made it ever so much more obvious that I would never achieve anything in education.

She was to a certain degree correct. I did leave school with no qualifications or certificates to show that I had ever been there. 

I remember finding an old encyclopedia in the back shed of the place where I had a job. I had been tasked to clean the place out. I laid the book aside and at the end of the day, I took it home with me. I saw in the book pictures of an experiment that had been done with a large white shark. I read it through.

A marine biologist placed a shark into a large holding tank and then released several small bait fish into the tank. As you would expect, the shark quickly swam around the tank, attacked and ate the smaller fish.

The marine biologist then inserted a strong piece of clear fibreglass into the tank, creating two separate partitions. She then put the shark on one side of the fibreglass and a new set of bait fish on the other.

Again, the shark quickly attacked.  This time, however, the shark slammed into the fibreglass divider and bounced off.  Undeterred, the shark kept repeating this behaviour every few minutes to no avail.  Meanwhile, the bait fish swam around unharmed in the second partition.  Eventually, about an hour into the experiment, the shark gave up.

This experiment was repeated several dozen times over the next few weeks.  Each time, the shark got less aggressive and made fewer attempts to attack the bait fish, until eventually, the shark got tired of hitting the fibreglass divider and simply stopped attacking altogether.

The marine biologist then removed the fibreglass divider, but the shark didn’t attack.  The shark was trained to believe a barrier existed between it and the bait fish, so the bait fish swam wherever they wished, free from harm.

The shark had learned that those fish could not be got, so it stopped trying. 

Many of us, after experiencing setbacks and failures, emotionally give up and stop trying. Like the shark in the story, we believe that because we were unsuccessful in the past, we will always be unsuccessful. 

In other words, we continue to see a barrier in our heads, even when no ‘real’ barrier exists between where we are and where we want to go. Once we understand the barriers that have been erected for us are not necessarily a fact we can break through and achieve much.

In my case, it was my mother who erected educational barriers for me. In the case of the little boy and the wall, his mother had started to do the exact same thing. She was doing it for what she thought were all the correct reasons but planting you can "nevers" in the boys head would not encourage him to try again.

I am sure the following practice would not be permitted now but it worked for me and my pals. We lived together near a naval swimming pool. One summer the boys from my street and the next one along were invited to attend a daily swimming lesson at the pool.

None of us could swim. The naval instructor told us all to line up along the side of the pool at the deep end. We did as we were told. He and another sailor came up behind us with a long bamboo pole and we all went into the water together. "Now get out," said the instructor. We did each and every one of us. Swimming lesson number one a success. He never told us we could never manage it he just assumed we would.

I have a friend who has been learning to swim and doing so very well. Gone are the swim aids and helps and my friend is swimming. But five lengths of the shallow end. She has convinced herself she cannot, as yet, do the length of the pool even though that is a shorter distance than five breadths.

We do not always need others to build barriers for us we make a good job of doing it ourselves. The shark taught me a lesson if you want to do something enough the barriers might slow you down but do not let them stop you.

I have many friends who for one reason or another say they cannot paint or draw. Take the barriers down the little painting at the top took me five minutes. Even if it takes you an hour you can do it. 

Have a wonderful day go on have a try at something you have been told you cannot do.it really is a marvellous feeling when you discover that you can.