Posted April 20, 2023 | Published Article Here by Idaho Statesman
I’ve mentioned before that I am a beginner in two undertakings: learning to write fiction and playing tennis.
I’ll admit that a month ago I was in the doldrums on both and thought about chucking these new “harder-than-I-expected-them-to-be” endeavors. Then I had a tennis lesson from Sam.
When I rolled into the lesson, I confessed that I was exasperated, felt I was making little progress and thought I was re-re-re-learning the same hard-to-remember techniques, from pushing and following through on strokes, to moving my feet, to figuring out the irritating toss for a serve, to reading the infuriating ball as it made its way over the net. Is it a short or long ball? How will it bounce?
My face is getting red just writing this. You get the picture.
Now, I’m a teacher, and I know that some days my students just aren’t in the right frame of mind. It’s my job to nudge them to a more open mindset so they’ll learn and feel they’ve made progress. With undergraduates, it means making it fun so they’ll want to learn more. With executives, it means showing them why this topic (whatever that might be) is important and how it could be useful for work on Monday. For both groups, I have to make them care.
I expected some kind of pep talk from Sam, the tennis instructor — something like “that’s normal, you can do it, everyone has ups and downs.”
“Just care less,” Sam said.
Care less?
“Yeah, if you don’t care so much about how you hit it, if you don’t think about it too much, if you just have fun, maybe it’ll go better.”
About the Author
Nancy K. Napier, Ph.D., is a Distinguished Professor Emerita at Boise State University, Executive MBA professor of strategy and leadership.