Okay To Be Late Bloomers In Personal Growth

photo credit: ashley_murphy

Late Bloomers In Personal Growth

In some ways, I was a late bloomer in personal growth and here’s why.  I love being able to do great cardio exercise without sweating like a HOG, which is why I take as much advantage of the outdoor pool season as possible.

The other day, there were these little kids in my pool during my swim workout. They must have been about five to eight years old and they were darting all over the deep end like mini torpedoes. I was quite impressed with their swimming abilities especially given their young ages.

But I was also thinking about how my own swimming skills were like when I was their age or to be more accurate, the LACK of swimming skills. All I could do back then was the ‘starfish’ float.

Each time I tried to swim, I would just do some feeble flapping of my arms which didn’t really propel me anywhere and then I proceeded to SINK like a battleship that took a direct hit from a torpedo!

A Turning Point In Personal Growth

Then during my first year of high school, I was lucky enough (or unlucky as I saw it back then) to get the swim team coach as my gym teacher. It was not surprising that we were going to get twice as many swim days compared to everyone else at school.  Oh what fun this was going to be – NOT!

I was in for MAJOR embarrassment each time we had swim days because of my poor swimming abilities. But ‘Duckie’ as we called this teacher, forced us to keep doing laps in the pool.

This would turn out to be quite a turning point in personal growth for me.  Somehow through those forced laps, I actually started to swim the entire length of the school pool – YAY!

Another World Of Personal Growth Opens Up

Years later, I decided to take a certification course in scuba diving and at age 38, I become a fully certified scuba diver. This opened up a whole new world of personal growth for me as I have dived all over with close encounters with all sorts of marine life including stingrays, dolphins and sharks.

Some of my dives as you might know, were caught on VIDEO and appear in my Motivational WebTV series. If you missed any of these episodes, catch them at;

Underwater Videos From Motivational WebTV

Being able to experience the underwater world and its wonderful marine life has enabled me to boost my own personal growth in a way that was not possible before.

Never Too Late To Learn New Skills For Personal Growth

This is why I totally believe that it’s NEVER too late to learn new skills. I was a late bloomer as a swimmer unlike these little kids at my pool.  But that’s okay because I’m now enjoying experiences and personal growth that I would never have imagined before.

If you have always wanted to do something like swimming or other sports or perhaps learning a new language, it’s NEVER too late.  Just do some research to find qualified instruction and GO FOR IT!