What I am reflecting?
Five Minutes That Matter
After coming back from work, I decided to tell my son that I was going for a walk in the garden.
I asked him, “I’m going for a walk in the garden. Would you like to join me?”
I told him that I was going, whether he joined me or not. That normally I’ll ask, “Do you want to go?”.
At first, he didn’t really agree to come along. But after a while, he said, “Why not?” I think the real reason he wanted to go was that he could play basketball, and that was perfectly fine with me.
So we headed to the garden.
While playing with the ball, it rolled away and dropped into a drain.
Without saying anything, I simply stood there and looked at him.
He bent down and tried to pick up the ball, but his arms were too short and the drain was quite deep. He couldn’t reach it.
He looked at me and said, “Daddy, I can’t pick up the ball.”
I asked him, “What can you do?”
As usual, he replied, “I don’t know.”
That’s okay.
I didn’t answer. I just stood there and looked at him.
A moment later, he said again, “Daddy, I don’t know how to pick up the ball.”
I asked, “Is there anything you could use to help you?”
We looked around. There was some water in the drain, and nearby we found a stick. He tried using the stick, but it was too weak to lift the ball.
Again, he said, “I don’t know.”
I stood there for maybe five minutes, waiting for him to figure it out.
In my mind, I was thinking that I should let him try. I wanted him to build self-reliance and resilience. Maybe it would take longer. Maybe he didn’t know how to do it. But I felt that, given enough time, he would find a solution.
In the past, I probably would have just picked up the ball for him. It would have been faster, and we could have continued doing what we wanted to do.
But that day, I realized that spending five minutes standing there was far more valuable.
Those five minutes gave him an opportunity to learn self-reliance, to solve a problem on his own, and to experience the satisfaction of overcoming a challenge. My role was simply to ask questions, offer encouragement, and remind him not to give up.
The reason I’m sharing this is that, as a coach, when I hear people’s struggles and problems, especially those that I have experienced myself, I tend to jump to conclusions and lead them toward a solution that I think is feasible.
While that may be helpful, I’ve noticed that sometimes, after they receive the answer, you can see from their face that they don’t really feel the satisfaction that comes from discovering the answer themselves. They may have found a way out, but perhaps it’s not fully their way.
This experience reminded me that I need to slow down.
Sometimes, offering a little encouragement and asking questions that guide their thinking can be far more valuable than giving them the answer. It helps them develop their own insights and build the skills to overcome similar challenges in the future.
Just like my son learning how to retrieve the ball from the drain, people often grow the most when they are given the space to figure things out for themselves.
A gentle reminder to myself: sometimes, being slow is fast.
P.S. Yes. In the end, he managed to retrieve the ball himself. He was so happy.
Quote I’m pondering
“The present isn’t a waiting room for some better future. It is the only time there is.” – Oliver Burkeman
Affirmation I used
Right now, I have everything I need.