When I signed up for my first aerial class in September of my sophomore year, I never thought I’d still be doing it a year later. However, sticking with the class helped me take pride in my own progress. The one-hour classes are split between stationary trapeze and aerial silks, both of which I was terrible at. The day of my first class, my hands were shaking, I couldn’t get off the ground, and I was flushed and sweaty the whole way through. The worst of it was that taking the class was all my idea.
I’ve never been an active person, both physically or in my own life. I was good at most of the creative ventures I took without having to try, and the same went for academics. I got comfortable in my niche. I drew confidence from those effortless successes.
Every time I tried to get into a sport, I quit. It wasn’t easy, and it definitely didn’t feel natural to me. I was uncoordinated, chubby and felt too old to be trying something like a new sport. It was my own insecurities that drove me away time after time.
I spent most of middle school upset that I didn’t start a sport in third grade and had missed years of opportunities to become good at something. I wasted away middle school with those regrets.
It wasn’t even until freshman year that I realized how stupid I was being. If I kept thinking I was too old to start something new, by the time I’d graduated I’d be looking back at more than a decade of nothing, all for the sake that it was somehow too late.
Harvard Business Review discusses how this shift in perception is the key to convincing ourselves to do hard things. Reflecting on my own thought processes, and making that shift towards what I had missed out on, was the motivation I needed to start looking into what would become my new experiment.
My sister, her friend and I soon signed up for our first classes at an aerial studio. I emerged from the first class utterly humbled. But the class was paid for in six week sessions, so I was forced to stick with my commitment. By the end of the six weeks, I’d decided to keep going if only to spend those extra hours with my sister.
By the end of six months, two things had happened. First, the class had become a comfortable space. I liked my coaches, my peers, and I still had my sister as a lifeline. Beyond that, I had learned the basics of the trapeze skills.
It’s been a year since my first class and my sister is off to college, but somehow I’m still doing it on my own. I’m not exactly sure when the shift happened, but going to my aerial classes has become an eye in the storm of junior year. I’ve seen and earned the small improvements I’ve made. It’s felt empowering in a way that nothing else I’ve ever done has.
Putting in the time and effort to stick to learning a new skill, especially in an area you struggle in, helps you take newfound pride in yourself. For the first time in eight years, I don’t feel like I’m waiting for something to change in my life. Instead, I’m the one making the changes, with my own two hands.
