It doesn’t matter what your ‘impossible’ was, or how big or small it was, but has there ever been anything in your life that you once thought was completely and utterly impossible, and then over time it has now become possible?!
Maybe a skill, a hobby, a job, a way of life, a dream, a relationship or a talent?
How do you feel now you have made the impossible possible?
And how did you change the impossible into the possible?
The most amazing thing I ever did, from my own perspective, was complete a 5K race. I was the kid who walked the mile in high school, hated running, was totally out of shape, and couldn’t imagine ever being like those crazy people who got up at 6am and ran.
But I became that crazy person, and I discovered a passion I never would have imagined, and using the Couch-2-5K Running Plan I built up to 3.5 miles in just two months. I was (and still am) a ridiculously slow runner, but dammit, I’ve got stamina. My longest run was an hour and a half. I ran the 5K on the 4th of July 2008. Of course, by that point, I’d already run that distance, so it didn’t seem impossible–though I was rather surprised that I trounced my PR for pace by two minutes (and here is where success is relative–there was an 85 year old asthmatic man who came in ahead of me. Man, I didn’t care. I’d done it!)
Now running in the Spring and Summer is a general pattern for me.
How did it feel? Amazing. As Eleanor Roosevelt has said, ‘‘You must do the thing you think you cannot do,’’ and I’ve tried to live by that principle whenever possible. It made me all the more likely to try new things, even if I sucked at them.
How did I do it? One baby step at a time.
At school I was a very quick learner and understood most things straight away. That led me to believe that if I couldn’t do something right off the bat, I couldn’t do it at all. That left me with a few things I could do, and a whole range of stuff that was impossible. Since then, I have learned to do a whole bunch of things that I never thought I could do. I learned to draw, to sail a boat, to sing in tune, to keep the house clean, make small talk, and many other things.
There were two things that made a difference for me. One was that sometimes I was just going about things all wrong, and it was never going to work. Like for singing, I just used to try and sing the song, and it sounded horrible. Then a singing teacher told me to try to listen to the notes, and match them, and work my way through the song note by note. That had actually never occurred to me before, and it totally altered the way I thought about singing. I could see straight away why I had so much trouble before. Drawing was another thing where a teacher spotted my wrong approach, and was able to correct it. Other things I eventually worked out myself. A lot of things are impossible if you go about them the wrong way, but quite doable if you do it the right way. That’s the first thing I look for now, when there’s something I can’t do.
The other thing I noticed, slowly, over time, was that things people did a lot of, they got better at. I noticed it first in other people. There was a girl I knew who loved to draw dragons. She drew them all the time, and they were really beautiful, expressive, detailed, in proportion. I thought she was an amazing artist. Then she started drawing other things, new things, and her drawings weren’t nearly as good, and I was confused. She kept drawing them, and she started to get good again. That was the first time I realised that you could start out not being able to do something, but if you practised, you would get better and eventually be able to do it. I had to see that in action many more times before I finally, really understood it.
How it feels? It’s liberating. I know I could do most things, if I wanted to, was willing to learn, and put the time and effort in. Some things are easier for me than others, but most things should be eventually doable. I feel more balanced, and a whole, as a person. Before, I had a strict set of ‘stuff I could do’ and many more that I couldn’t, so I was very limited and one-sided. I have so many more options now, I have more fun, I’m more relaxed.
That’s what I do for a living.
There’s darn little satisfaction in it these days – every day they come up with a new definition of “impossible”.
— Yes, I’ve had a rough day.
oh sure all the time
I found a person who loves me for who I am.
I was in some terrible relationships, some were abusive physically, some emotionally. I hated myself and thought that no one would ever love me. I started to love me… and I found someone who really loves me. I though being married to my husband would never happen. He’s so wonderful and I love him so much.
5 years ago, I would have said that anyone really and truly loving me was impossible. I was a mess. I didn’t love me. But now, it’s not only possible, but it has actually happened.
Becoming a published science fiction author. I kept working at it until I started selling.
Shiiiiiiiiiiiiit man, usually twice before lunch.
A couple, who couldn’t have a baby, got one because of me, so, yeah, I guess I did make the impossible possible, if you look at it right.
Lose weight to the point of not being overweight (medically - I would like to be slimmer still, but I think as long as I am a healthy weight I need to now learn to be happy with myself) and keeping it that way.
To me one of the most frustrating things about being a consultant is when I’m not allowed to do as much as I can…
The grins around the office when we finished that Impossibly Huge Project (1)
on schedule,
on target,
and on budget bayyyyyyybe!
were enough to light Philly up.
(1): a SAP implementation covering every single module and over 40 countries, in less than 5 years since “ok, let’s get this going” until the last go-live. Each rollout would involve 3-15 plants, and (with a few exceptions) every module each plant needed. That is, none of that “first we implement finance… then logistics… then production…” which seems to be so popular and so prone to producing bad instances of ZAPism.
I learned Chinese
I do this routinely. It’s not part of my job, as such, because I don’t really have a job, but I enjoy making nice things happen for people, especially nice things that they thought were impossible.