I hate playing sports I’m not good at.
Hate is a strong word, but it fairly well describes my feelings toward sports that I feel like I can’t compete well in. I never played competitive sports on a team growing up, but I played a lot of backyard sports. Because of this, I was able to get a basic understanding of a lot of different sports.
In general, for most sports, I have an average knowledge of the rules of the game and can compete. There are a few outliers that I have no skill in, and they drive me crazy. One of which of these sports is beloved bowling. A sport I hate with a passion.
It makes me respect people who tend to not be athletic because they are great troopers when they play and aren’t great. I instantly get irritated. I started this evening out with missing the pins on my first and second bowl. I instantly realized if I was going to try and enjoy myself, I had to work on getting better.
In the middle, while everyone was taking their turn bowling, I was on the side watching a “how to” video on how to improve your shot. Between that and asking a couple of the guys there for pointers, over the three games, I improved my score by over 60 points. By the end, even though I still sucked, I felt improvement and a path forward to get better, which is the best I’ve felt while bowling.
It’s amazing what just spending even a few hours trying to improve on something can do to your skill level on that thing. Stop being okay with being mediocre, and always strive for better. Have fun along the way, but stove for more.