Can't Is A Curse Word

I used to teach a dance class for kindergarten through fourth grade students and I noticed that when I introduced a new move, exercise or skill that there would be a few students that would say, “I can’t do it,” before they even gave it a try. From that point on I established a new rule. I told them that “Can’t” and “Don’t”, as in “I don’t know how,” were curse words that were banned from our classroom and punishable by 5 push-ups.

I’m not sure how effective the push-up part of the punishment was, but the youth really bought into the idea that “can’t” and “don’t” were indeed curse words that hindered our progress in our class.

If one of the students accidentally uttered the one of those words they would immediately catch themselves then reluctantly drop down and give me five push-ups. If a student did not catch themselves, the other students would quickly jump in and say, “Oooooooohhh, she cursed!” Each time this happened I asked the student’s, “How do you know that you can’t, or that you don’t know how, if you’ve never even given it a try?”

The rest of us hinder ourselves in the same way. We may not always actually utter the words, but there are several things that we don’t believe that we could ever do, even if we’ve never given it a good try. We paralyze ourselves with fear and self-doubt. It didn’t take long for the kids to catch on to the danger of using such self-defeating words and thoughts, so what is your hold up?

This week I challenge you to begin weaning the word “Can’t” out of your vocabulary, especially when it comes to things that you’d actually love to be able to do, but you are too afraid to give it a try.

“Can’t” is a curse word. How do you know you can’t if you haven’t even tried? Watch your mouth...and your mind!