Today we were due to have our first You Can Check It Out meeting of 2013; however, it snowed. And snowed and snowed and snowed. Half of our team were snowed in so we decided to postpone today’s meeting. I thought this was a great opportunity to review our last meeting here, as we talked about some pretty juicy stuff.

We started with a word. “Impossible.” What does it mean? We found this really hard at first; we could think of films like Mission Impossible and The Hulk!

An example helped. “What if I told you I didn’t have any legs?” Straight away Tracy said, “It would be impossible, you wouldn’t be able to walk.” “What if I told you I was going to climb a mountain, on my hands?” “Impossible!”

Then ideas started to flow. “I find it really hard to say no to take-aways.” “I find it really hard to lose weight.” “I find it really hard to communicate with people.” “… to make healthy choices…” “…to go to the shops…” We found that everyone’s impossible is different.

We soon realised that even though there were things we think of as really hard, there were also examples of us doing these things. “I did a presentation.” “I’ve lost weight.” “I went out to the shops for the first time the other week!” We started to talk about what had made these things possible, and we came up with the list. I thought it would be great to share this learning with you!

How to Make the Impossible Possible:

• Break it down into smaller pieces – little steps are easier!
• Take your time
• Make sure that you don’t feel under any pressure
• Plan a reward at the end – something you really enjoy and that you find easy
• Trust that it gets easier over time
• Keep practicing! Keep trying!

We also felt that having someone else helps…

• For reassurance
• Someone with you who believes in you
• Someone with you who shares your interest – or bring people in who share the same interest!
• Someone who has done it before – who can show you the smaller steps

At the end of the session, we watched this film: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18508243

What do you think of the film? Are there any examples you notice from our list? What are the ways that you help yourself, when you’re working on something that feels hard or impossible?