Why failing at sports doesn't necessarily have to be a bad thing

Once upon a time there was a girl. She tried many sports, but felt awkward and clumsy in doing all of them. All of the sports she tried just didn’t seem to fit her. Catching balls, dancing, it just wasn’t working. Wondering who that girl is? Yep, that girl is me.

I cannot emphasize enough that I am not the most athletic person in the world. I am clumsy, awkward, and uncomfortable when it comes to working out and this already started at an early age.

Failing at sports

When I was still a little tiny girl, I thought it would be fun to join the local gymnastics team because I liked the graceful bodies of the gymnasts I saw during the olympics on the telly. And so, full of confidence, I showed up at my first gymnastics class ever...

How could I have ever been so wrong, it was terrible! I was too afraid to do all of the exercises. I thought it was scary to be that high up. I didn’t like to do backflips or swirl around the air like Epke Zonderland (best male gymnast in the Netherlands). After a couple of lessons I quit. My mom and dad agreed, because it didn’t really help that their daughter wouldn’t dare to do anything except for watching the people who did have enough courage to do the gymnastic exercises.

Eventually, I grew older and got into dancing. I loved the people on the television moving smoothly to the music. I wanted to learn this as well! Together with my sister, we decided that we wanted to be a streetdancer. Little did we know that streetdance moves are fast and quite difficult. And so, we couldn’t keep up :'). When the group moved right, we were still moving to the left. You can imagine what that must have looked like ;). After a while, I think even the teacher got tired of us, because we couldn’t keep up. Even girls who were younger than us managed to do the steps. Eventually, we quit because it wasn’t fun anymore and everyone was mad at us. Oh well..

After streetdance, there was a period in my life I played tennis. I did this for 5 years and I really enjoyed it. But, again, I wasn’t really good at it, what a surprise! Eventually, my sister was so good that she was approached by a team selector. So at least, one of us succeeded. You can imagine that after this, I didn't do any sports for a really long time, because I just wasn't good at it. However, I have to say that tennis was one step into the right direction.

The turning point

During university, I started exercising again: zumba. For the first time, I didn't care how I looked. And although it looked ridiculous, I loved to do it.

Btw, you wouldn't believe it, but I also picked up running. No matter how slow I run, I am still running. I have not yet fell, I am not scared to do it, and it doesn't involve any balls. So I'm happy.

Eventually, the point that I am trying to make is that although you can be failing at sports, you will find something that fits you. See it as a journey. You can be clumsy, awkward, or have motorial disabled skills, just like me. But there is always something that suits you and that you will enjoy. Just try out a lot of different sports and if it doesn't suit you, laugh about it, find some hilarious GIF's of other people that fail at it too, and move on to the next sport. :)