Saturday, May 1, 2010

It's gotta be a decision. It has to.

PhotobucketFourth CCP skills attempt down... and I mean DOWN. Fallen like a diaper full to its 15- pound capacity.

Granted, I've had some lousiness lately--my steno writer went on the fritz, so I had to send it away for repair--it came back quickly, but in the meantime I had to get readjusted to writing on a Stentura, and then re-readjust to writing on a LightSpeed again.

And a couple of tornado warnings.

Not to mention the dent I put in a nun's car door a couple weeks ago. But anyway.

I did all the right things. I practiced high-speed material EVERY DAY. I've been CARTing nearly every day the past month. I did my best to entertain only POSITIVE thoughts and avoid negativity. My CART output gets better and better.

So it's test day, and I practiced some high-speed material beforehand. I printed out an encouraging e-mail from a friend. I played positive, upbeat music in the car on the drive over. I wore my Test Shirt. I set up my laptop just like I'm CARTing, any other day, no biggie, no problem. I wrote my affirmations on a piece of paper to put where I could see it during the test.

One of my affirmations is "I am the best in the world at what I do." I ripped off borrowed that phrase from wrestler Chris Jericho (he says this catchphrase a lot), and wrote that phrase by his picture, which I put on the table as well.



You know, for inspiration.*

And the test began, and I made errors, but soon I hit a stride. I did have stretches where I nailed that thang! Problem is though, the stretches weren't five minutes long. I did my best to LET IT GO. If I made an error, fine; move on. Relax. RELAAAAAX!!!!!

It's hard to stay positive. But I've got to DECIDE to stay positive. I've got to. That's the only way I'll ever kill this thing and move on.

I come home and find this article from Cracked Magazine. (Mind you, this humor site in general isn't for young kiddos or people who are allergic to cuss words. But this is a good article.) Getting a BIG SKILL will take BIG EFFORT. I'm NOT one hundred percent engaged in practice. I'd say I was about 80 percent engaged.

So I'm going to work hard and practice hard. And I'll take it again. And again. As many times as I need to.

That's my decision.


*Don't be nailing me for reposting the pic, Men's Fitness. It's free publicity, and you know it.