In gymnastics landing a leap correctly is nearly as important as your take off and midair execution of the leap. I learned this lesson during my one year attempt at being a gymnast. I’ve never been very coordinated, but that didn’t stop me as a child from making an attempt at many sports and activities that required it.
In Junior High I decided to join the gymnastics team. There was nothing graceful about my gymnastics abilities, but I was not lacking in ambition. Four major factors worked against me. First, I struggle with depth perception. Second, I am admittedly uncoordinated. Third, our coach was more interested in having fun then teaching technique. And fourth, our school was sadly lacking in proper equipment.
These four major factors played a large role in my experience at our first competition. You see our team trained using a very old springboard to mount the vault. It had very little spring left in it. It required a full speed run and a powerful jump onto the springboard in order to vault the horse. As far as we knew this measure of power was required for everyone using the vault, because we knew nothing different.
We traveled to our competition and arrived late. We had no time to practice or warm up. When it was my turn to compete my heart was racing. I ran down the runway and with every ounce of strength and jumped with all my might onto the springboard provided by the competition. It was while I was mid-air, long after I flew several feet too high over the vault, that I realized the difference in the springboards. The hosting school had a very powerful springboard and I over shot the vault in both height and distance.
As I flew through the air with astounding velocity I grew concerned about my landing. I nearly flew over the end of landing area. I was still reaching down towards the vault I had long ago cleared. It was an awkward and potentially dangerous landing in a frog-like stance. I sprung to my feet off the end of the mat and gave the most confident dismount pose imaginable.
I learned the value of having the right equipment and support, stick-to-it-ive-ness and the importance of the landing pose in gymnastics. Recently, I discovered that over the past few months that I’ve been operating using the wrong equipment and support when it came to my blog and social media platforms. My landing into KaylaFioravanti.com wasn’t perfect, but today I’m fixing it with a graceful pose (re- release of my blog) and carrying on.
I took a giant leap of faith when we sold our company Essential Wholesale in the Northwest and moved to Franklin, Tennessee this summer in pursuit of my husband’s dream and company CCM Legacy. I also took a leap of faith on the direction I believe God designed me to focus which is as a wife, mother and author. What this year has taught me is the importance of landing the leap of faith. Making mistakes along the way is to be expected, but landing solidly and moving on is critical.
Five Lessons I Learned in Landing a Leap of Faith
In Business
1. Use the Right Equipment and Support
Today I am announcing the redesign of my website by Jennifer Smith at Eco-Office Gals. My new site will be easy to comment and share articles you like on your favorite social media platform.
In Business and in Life
2. Be Patient
You can’t expect to conquer a new city, or unpacking a mountain of boxes, or building a social media empire or whatever is on the other side of your leap of faith in a day.
3. Be Realistic
Everyone wants to know how I love Franklin. Well, I don’t know yet and that is okay. It is unrealistic to think that overnight you can build a social and support foundation in a month. It took me years to have friends at the kid’s school, dance studio, at church and in my day to day outings. I was in Portland on and off for 25 years and to think that I could fill that gap of human support in a month would be unrealistic. I’m not dishing people for asking, I’m just saying if you took a leap of faith recently, be realistic in your expectations of falling in love with your new home.
4. Get the Next Thing Done
A leap of faith takes a whole lot of leg work. Settling into a new home, finding the grocery store, setting up a new business, turning on utilities and getting them working right…oh the list can go on and on. It is enough to make you want to crawl into bed and hide, but just get the next thing done and forgive yourself for anything left on the list at the end of each day.
5. Get Plugged In
Needless to say, my teenage daughter was full of dread about our move. In order to get her plugged in as quickly as possible so she wouldn’t have time to mope around the house I had her in dance camp just two days after our arrival. School was next and we are searching for a church to get plugged into for the long run. Whatever it is on the other side of your leap that scares you the very most is the thing I recommend you get plugged into right away. Creating a network of friends to help you land takes time and intentional effort.
How about you? Have you taken a leap of faith? What did you learn? How can I support your landing?
A new website design? Yay! Everyone loves a good spruce up – and it’s perfect timing dovetailing with your move. Best of luck with your transition. It will be exciting to see where the next few years take you guys.
Thanks A-M! I am so excited about the new design and working with Jennifer at Eco-Office Gals. All sorts of new exciting projects in the works that will be rolling out shortly.
Thank you for the mention, it’s been a pleasure giving you a site I hope will be much more user friendly and I’m here to support you in anyway!
Thanks Jen — you have been amazing.
Kayla, great story and I wondered why you moved. Now I know! I was recently let go from a position that I started 2 months ago because management “over estimated their need for providers”. I was devastated because I thought this was the right job for me. I was offered two other positions in the company but my instincts told me this is not the right company for me. So I turned them both down and am staying at my other part time job serving victims of crime. I believe that the “right” position will be shown to me when the time is right. And who knows maybe I am already there. We are working on a new project of developing a residential recovery program for women who have been exploited through the sex trade. This project is a passion for me and I would not have had time to devote to it if I had the other full time job. I will be traveling to Nashville in October to visit a successful program there to learn how to get started here in Washington. I don’t know how far Franklin is from Nashville but you may want to check them out Kayla, I think your knowledge about body care products would be very helpful to them. http://www.thistlefarms.org/ Thank you for all you have shared over the years!
Thanks Paula. Wow, maybe you are in the right place. Sounds like amazing work you are doing and something you are passionate about. Thanks for sharing. I will check out their site.
This is so true, of taking that leap of faith. I too had to take a leap of faith of going back to school again. I have been unemployed for several months after a job that just did not work out instead of being able to increase clients with giving me more hours they kept cutting my hours.
Even though both is different we both took a leap of faith.
Praying for you as you land your leap of faith.