Our family just returned today from a 12-day roadtrip to Arkansas and Missouri to spend time with both of our extended families. As usual, we spent a lot of time on the water. Because, as I’ve written about before, my family was pretty much all born with mega watersports genes.
Well, everyone, that is, but me. Somehow, I didn’t really get any watersports skills genes at all.
I’m not kidding. Trust me on this one.
So, for years on our trips to Bull Shoals Lake, I’ve contented myself with tubing, riding in the boat, watching kiddos, and (let’s be honest) hanging out in the cabin reading. Because I’ll take a good book over waterspots any ‘ole day.
I usually at least make one attempt at water-skiing on each trip to the lake. Just to make sure, you know, that I didn’t magically get injected with the watersports gene in the past 12 months. 
And the attempt always ends in failure. But that’s okay, because I’ve really owned the fact that I have other gifts and core competencies and I’m good with leaving the watersports proficiencies to others.
This year, my family brought a knee board and most everyone learned how to knee board. I didn’t even consider trying because, well, I’m not good at watersports.
But as I watched others in my family learn how to knee board, it really looked like fun. Then, Jesse tried his hand at it and had a blast.
I didn’t try the knee board while we were at Bull Shoals with my family last week and I sort of regretted it. So when we were with Jesse’s family this week and they rented a boat in Branson and also rented a knee board, I started working up my courage.
I watched Jesse knee board and then watched as both of his brothers learned, too. I was inwardly debating whether or not to try.
The thought of going out and failing at it was sort of discouraging to consider. But as the afternoon wore on, I remembered how I’ve been working on being intentional about not letting “I can’ts” hold me back from trying things.
While I know that I’m not ever going to be a professional water-skiier, I don’t want to let the belief that “I’m not good at watersports” define my decisions… especially because I really did want to try knee-boarding.
So instead of chickening out, I volunteered to be the next one on the knee board. I told everyone in the boat that there was a good chance I wouldn’t make it up, but I decided to jump out in the water and give it all I had.
And y’all! I couldn’t believe it: because I GOT UP ON THE VERY FIRST TIME.
I was pretty sure I must have been dreaming or something. But no, it was true. Me, the very-inept-at-watersports girl was actually knee-boarding. And I had the time of my life!
I dropped the rope and had them circle around so I could try it again. Just to make sure that it wasn’t some fluke accident that I got up the first time. 
And no, it wasn’t. Because I got up on the knee board again and even attacked both wakes! And it felt amazing!
This victory inspires me to keep putting myself out there, keep trying new things, and to not let fear of failure hold me back — even when I think I won’t succeed at something. I want to stop letting the belief that “I can’t” or “I’m not good at that” hold me back from jumping out and trying things.
You never know… maybe next year I’ll even figure out how to water-ski on one ski instead of two! For now, though, I’m committed anew to stop letting the belief that “I can’t” or “I’m not good at that” hold me back from jumping out and trying things.
A testimony from Laura
My husband was getting ready to graduate from college when we decided to move our family of four from Southern Oregon, back to our home state of Colorado — a 1,000 mile move!
Since we had been living on a college-student-sized budget, we didn’t have a lot of money to spend on moving, but we were committed to doing it debt-free.
I went to a do-it-yourself moving company to get estimates, and found that to move all our stuff would cost around $2,500, including gas and lodging. But if we chose to pare down and move our stuff in a trailer that we could haul, we could move for less than $1,000, including gas and lodging.
The largest trailer we could rent from this company was 6×12. Yes, that is six feet by twelve feet (the inside of the trailer is just 11.7 x 5.5, don’t ask me how I know that)!
Since we had been living on a very tight budget, nearly all our belongings had been purchased used and they were looking quite used. We considered that the amount it would cost to move everything was not equal to the value of our belongings, and that if we chose not to move those items (and get rid of anything we weren’t in love with), we could fit into the trailer. Besides, if the Oregon trail pioneers could move a household in a covered wagon, then surely we had no excuse!
Once we decided to move, we had a month-and-a-half before the big day. Here is what we did:
I dug through every room in the house and ruthlessly purged. I kept only the items that we absolutely used and wanted, and everything else was either listed on Craigslist or went in a garage sale pile.
I listed our furniture and nicer items on Craigslist.
Then we had 3 garage sales. At the end of these three sales, we had sold almost everything we wanted to eliminate.
Between Craigslist and the garage sales, we earned $1300!
Then came moving day. When my husband went to pick up the trailer, the trailer wasn’t ready on time, so we got $50 refunded to us. What a great way to kick off our money-saving adventure.
I packed breakfast, lunch, and dinner food in a cooler to save money on restaurants, and then we camped one of the nights.
By the time we paid for the trailer, gas, food, lodging, and even a visit to a zoo along the way, we only spent $900 on our move. That meant we had a whole $400 to get us started in our new home.
Even though it was challenging to eliminate so many of our possessions, we have what we need to get started. And though we will need to spend money to replace items we originally sold, I am confident that we will find a debt-free way to do this as well!
Laura Coble blogs over at Short and Sweet Moments and shares her journey as a mom, wife, and woman learning to stress-less and live in God’s grace. She is a mom to two boys and wife to her best friend. Her move taught her a lot about minimalist living and practicing Eccl 5:15 which says “We all come to the end of our lives as naked and empty-handed as on the day we were born. We can't take our riches with us”.
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