I get it, I really do, you have Dyspraxia and it causes you all sorts of problems. Perhaps your Dyspraxia means you can’t drive very well, or drive at all. Perhaps you Dyspraxia makes you clumsy and bump into objects. Maybe your Dyspraxia makes you forget people’s names at work or out in public. Maybe your Dyspraxia stops you from cutting food up very well because your gross and fine motor skills are very limited.
The list could go on and on, but you get the point. Dyspraxia is really quite an annoying medical conditions and the biggest problem is, at least to me, is that it’s a ‘Hidden Disability’. I personally don’t like the term ‘disability’ for Dyspraxia, but that’s just my opinion and how I view it, if you choose to see it as a disability, that’s your choice, I just think there’s worse disabilities to have. But as a hidden disability, it sucks.
As a hidden disability, it really is a pain in the backside and a kick in the teeth. Nobody can see it, only you and you can feel it every single day. You see and feel the annoyance it causes on a daily basis because it is a part of you and always will be. When people mention something about you that is because of your Dyspraxia, and you have to explain yourself and you have to be polite, for the 100th time, it can be quite annoying. It can also be a time to teach somebody about Dyspraxia, but it’s still annoying because you realise how little people actually know about it, or how many people just don’t know about it.
With Dyspraxia, and life, comes struggle, but I think people look at struggling as a bad thing, when instead, it is an essential learning tool.
If you struggle to tie your laces now, you will probably struggle later on in life too. If you struggle with maths now, you will probably struggle later too, that’s just the reality of it, and whatever your hidden disabilities are, they will always be there.
But, does struggling mean we have to stop trying? I think it’s an important question to ask.
Here’s my take on struggling: Struggling is meant to happen. We’re supposed to struggle. I don’t mean we’re supposed to struggle getting out of bed in the morning and brushing our teeth and getting dressed and having breakfast. I mean we’re supposed to struggle with challenges. The challenge could be learning a new skill or chasing a promotion at work, it could be teaching your son how to use the potty or it could be just trying to keep fit. But that’s just how the world works, it’s how reality is.
It isn’t to say that things are impossible, it’s just to say that some things are easier than others.
Where I think people go wrong is when they allow themselves to stop trying and they use their Dyspraxia as a smoke mirror to that thing.
Now, before you send me an angry message, here me out.
I’m NOT saying that you should try harder at the things that you really have tried to get better at and it just ain’t happening. You know yourself better than anyone. I tried to learning stocks and shares trading to make some money, and it just didn’t happen, it didn’t work for me and I couldn’t understand, but there are things that I know I can get better at if I just tried harder.
Some things are not elitist, they just require effort everyday, time and patience.
3 of my favourite hobbies are gym, skateboarding and guitar. 3 skills I know I can get better at if I worked at them more regularly. They are activities I can get better at because they are practical skills, and I enjoy practical objectives, that is where my strengths lie. I don’t have to think for long periods of time, or work out confusing equations or anything, I just look at a particular exercise, or trick, or chord, and I practise. I practise over and over and over and over again until I get it right. That right there is the struggle I talked about earlier. The struggle of finding that one area that you aren’t very good at, and getting better at it, even if it’s just a little bit, it’s still progress.
Now, should you try to get better at everything? Absolutely not. You should only try to get better at things that really mean something to you, or bring you joy.
I love the gym, I love lifting weights and building my muscles and getting stronger. It isn’t an elitist hobby, designed only for certain people. Going to the gym is an activity that everybody can enjoy.
Skateboarding is another hobby I enjoy. There are hundreds of tricks to try to learn, hundreds of places to try the tricks and hundreds of variations of entwining different tricks together, so the possibilities are endless.
Same thing with guitar. Once you learn the chords and get some strumming patterns down, the songs to learn and potential for how well you can play is endless.
Things I won’t get better at or at least won’t try:
Understanding stocks and shares. My brain just won’t comprehend any of it.
Football. I imagine myself being good at it and scoring goals, but the truth is I have terrible co-ordination and my motor skills are not suited to it.
So I’m not here to tell people their Dyspraxia doesn’t exist, I’m writing this to maybe persuade 1 or 2 readers to think with a bit more hope and optimism and enthusiasm with their goals and to just think……
Have I REALLY tried hard enough?
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