One of the many challenges I face as a Qigong teacher is to remember how it feels to be a beginner.
Fortunately life gives me plenty of opportunities to experience being a beginner in other areas and I like to export these over to remind me that growth isn’t always a comfortable experience.
Here are 3 tips that will help you to get through any Qigong growing pains:
1) Progress Not Perfection
As long as you follow the instructions you are given to the best of your ability and ask questions when you are uncertain – that is enough. Give yourself permission not to be perfect.
The first time I started racing F3 fast electric model boats I would sometimes go the wrong way around the course, I once nearly landed my boat at somebody’s feet (boat + land = not good).
But I did my best, I sort guidance from more experienced racers and I kept making progress.
Guess what?
This season I won the F3 2011 championship.
When you start out on your Qigong training it’s okay to forget things. It’s okay to make mistakes. It is unreasonable and cruel to expect yourself to be perfect straight out of the gate. As long as you are making progress with your practice that’s good enough.
2) Don’t Think, Do
I recently got myself into a very un-resoruceful state whilst trying to understand how to implement tracking into my online materials.
I just couldn’t get my head around the concepts involved, I couldn’t get a picture of how all the pieces fitted together. Ever heard of the saying: ‘paralysis by analysis‘?
That was me.
So I decided to stop thinking about it and start doing it. Step by step I followed the instructions and took action on each step. When I didn’t understand something I researched, I asked questions, until I was ready for the next step.
And you know what?
‘Doing‘ helped me to fill in the blanks of my understanding. ‘Doing‘ gave me insights that thinking simply couldn’t.
It’s the same with your Qigong training.
3) Plateaus
There will be pockets of time during your training when it seems that you are going nowhere fast. Your Progress Tracker scores aren’t going up, some of them may even be going down!
You can’t seem to make any progress towards your aims and objectives.
I’m here to tell you that this is completely normal.
If you look at the graph above you’ll see a line that rises through time. But every now and then it dips into a shallow lake before rising again. These lakes or dips are plateaus in your skill development.
Plateaus are an essential part of growth. Growth is rarely linear. There will always be peaks and troughs.
The point to remember is that plateaus are a precursor to growth. If you have the discipline and determination to keep moving forward.
Conclusion
Growth in any endeavor isn’t always pain free, but it is always worth the effort.
Bye for now
Marcus James Santer
P.S. If you’re experiencing growing pains in any area of your life, I invite you to re-read this Qigong blog post, but this time from the 2nd paragraph onwards. Every time you read the word Qigong, substitute it for the growing pain.
E.g. Here are 3 tips that will help you to get through your Qualification growing pains:
Or,
Here are 3 tips that will help you to get through your Relationship growing pains:
You get the idea I’m sure =)
