Challenge Yourself

At the beginning of January I wrote about the death of a skier from the Snowbird Ski Team. Several days later the skier's older brother was skiing on the fallen skier's skis and realized how his younger brother had gotten to be so good. Written in permanent ink on the tip of each ski was the phrase, "Challenge Yourself." It is amazing that those two words can have such an impact. Since discovering this, my own skiing has improved dramatically. The phrase need not be limited to one sport or even one aspect of life; it can be applied everywhere.

I spent the first part of February running around Colorado skiing a number of different areas that I had never been. One day we were close enough to Taos, New Mexico that we skied Taos Ski Valley. While there I picked up a sticker that says, "Taos, a four letter word for steep." I can confirm that Taos is really steep. There were a number of runs where I was forced to "Challenge Myself" and the physical rush I received afterwards was amazing. This was merely the first time I exercised the phrase with my skiing and I have continued to experience similar results.

I am now preparing to help run radio support for the Salt Flats 100 in April and we will be using some new-to-me technology. This required purchasing some new gear and some of it is not quite fully baked. One hardware manufacturer sent me their product and instructions on how to make a cable to interface it with several popular ham radios. Unfortunately my radio is not among them. I became briefly discouraged as building the cable is not very intuitive. Then I remembered to "Challenge Myself" and sat down to read the technical specifications of the new device and my radio. I have come up with a technically elegant solution and am confident I won't damage either expensive piece of electronic equipment.

If you find yourself staring at a seemingly insurmountable problem, whether it be with your computer or some other aspect of your life, remember to "Challenge Yourself." It won't make the problem any easier but it will elevate your capacity to handle it.