My message to the world comes down to one word: try.
In my lifetime, I have seen too many people afraid to try; too scared to try new things, to try new places, to try meeting new people. Watching them place needless limitations on themselves meant, sadly, watching human potential go wasted. Great ideas, solutions and relationships were never realized or even attempted because they were too reluctant to try. They feared what others may think, they doubted their own abilities or they feared what may or may not happen.
Yet, trying can be liberating, empowering, and even exhilarating.
Trying leads to discoveries – discovering abilities and strengths that you didn’t know you had, discovering your own beliefs and values, and discovering what the big, amazing world is all about.
Trying builds confidence and belief in yourself, even when others may doubt you.
Trying means starting, somewhere, anywhere, and then proceeding one step at a time, no matter how small the step seems.
Trying takes determination and perseverance. When you stumble and possibly even fail, stand up, brush yourself off and try again.
Trying entails taking risks and doing something you haven’t done before. With an appropriate degree of forethought, planning or support in place, take that next step. Was it as risky as you were worried about?
Trying involves solving problems. When one way doesn’t work, try another way and even another. Keep trying until the problem is solved or until it no longer exists.
Trying means stepping out of your comfort zone. What you find out there can be so rewarding, so glorious and so awe-inspiring. You may wonder why you stayed trapped within the confines of your comfort zone for so long.
Go ahead…try…see how far you can go, how much you can accomplish, how much you can become.
Resulting from a lack of oxygen at birth, Glenda has cerebral palsy, mostly affecting her muscle coordination, balance and speech. Raised without the word “can’t” allowed, only “try”, and despite being labelled as functionally nonverbal and using an electric scooter for mobility, Glenda lives her life to its fullest.
Glenda discovered blogging four years ago, and, in doing so, this insightful and humorous woman finally found her voice and a way to communicate with the world! On her Do It Myself Blog, Glenda shares her experiences living with cerebral palsy to motivate and inspire others to think about how they perceive their own situation and the world around them. She also increases awareness and understanding to improve accessibility for people with disabilities. She does all this by typing with only her left thumb, and, hence, has become known as the Left Thumb Blogger!
For ten years, Glenda worked with three levels of government, transit authorities and non-profit organizations to increase the accessibility of their websites for people with disabilities. She now combines her web accessibility expertise with her passion for blogging and her first-hand experience living with a disability to work with bloggers to build an accessible blogosphere.
With her can-do attitude, Glenda has found a way to use text-to-speech software with PowerPoint to accommodate her significant speech impairment, enabling her to do something not thought possible, which is to give public speeches. Glenda delivers powerful presentations wherever she presents and is well on her way to becoming a sought-after speaker.
Glenda lives in Surrey, British Columbia with her wonderful husband Darrell who also has cerebral palsy, making life twice as interesting. Their ambitions are as normal as any couple’s: pay off the mortgage, travel and save for retirement.
Thank you Glenda! I think we forget to try new things because we feel we can live in the now forever. Then you can suddenly wake up and find you really miss out on a lot.
Wonderful advice. It’s sad to think of what we lose when we don’t have the courage to try and give in to silly fears. There can be no success without trying.
Fantastic article that motivated me to try and try until I achieved .
[…] The Power of TRY […]
Thank you Glenda! Yes, ‘Trying’ is living. ‘trying’ is moving forward; just do ‘trying’ to go through our life journey. 🙂