I have once again embarked upon the humbling hobby of training a German shepherd dog. Specifically, my new six-month-old named Zoey.

Zoey is not the problem, in fact rarely is it the dog that is the problem, it is her human who just plain old sucks at dog training. I understand it takes 10,000 hours of practice to become an expert at something. I am not seeking expert status, I just want to be a little bit good at it.

I certainly invested hundreds of hours training my last shepherd, Otto, and together we achieved what lots of people don’t by earning a BH (some wacky German word for having an obedient dog) and a Schutzhund I – a real title in the Schutzhund dog world. All of this means that I know I can do it again, but not without the patient help of an expert dog trainer who spends an hour a week with me repeating instructions that, through no fault of her own, leave me feeling graceless and clueless in front of my two favorite puppy eyes (and any other human eyes that should happen to be present).

Dog training is not the only activity at which I persist that I am obviously not good at. During week 10 of my indoor cycling class I still could not figure out how to get my bike locked onto the trainer. Week after week I would say to the person next to me, “Sorry, I know it’s week 3, 4, 5, 10, but I still cannot figure out how to get my bike on here.” I felt stupid, but not so stupid that I wouldn’t ask for help.

And don’t even ask my boys about the extent of my computer skills. The year I learned that I couldn’t put a document in “word” was a real awakening.

Me: “Where is that thing I was working on?”

Son: “Where did you put the thing you were working on?”

Me: “I put it in ‘word,’ I put everything in ‘word.’

Son: “That’s why you can never find anything. That would be like you asking me where I put the car keys and me saying, ‘they’re where the car keys are.’”

That to me actually made perfect sense, thus the obviousness of my incompetence.

Why do I persist at things I am not good at? Why does anyone?

I persist because I want something bad enough that I am willing to look bad doing it.

Fortunately only the person trying, attempting, persevering and ultimately succeeding or not can make the decision about how important their persistence is.

I once had a counselor ask me how long I was going to bang my head against a stone wall.

“Umm…..what is the stone made of?

You can always find a helmet or a hockey stick or better yet, a community of people who will stand beside you and help you succeed.

It is during my times of persistence where I have most often found a place to belong, fit it, join in and ultimately, succeed.

Aristotle said “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit.” If you make it a habit to join others in helping them persist at something they may not be good at, you both become better.

“Truth be told, being terrible at something is the first step to being truly great at it. Struggle is the evidence of progress. The more time you spend there, the faster you learn. It’s better to spend an extremely high quality ten minutes growing, than it is to spend a mediocre hour running in place. You want to practice at the point where you are on the edge of your ability, stretching yourself over and over again, making mistakes, stumbling, learning from those mistakes and stretching yourself even farther. The rewards of becoming great in the long run far outweigh the short-term discomfort that’s felt in the process of earning your stripes.” Marc and Angel Chernoff www.marcandangel.com.

Amen to that!

This year, 2016, my word for the year is “Do.” Do the hard thing, do the right thing, do a new thing, do what I don’t think I can do.

I hope you will follow me on My Passage of Time as write about dogs, depression and doing….