One good thing about being an early bird is that my day feels longer & I can accomplish certain things in the morning before I go off to work. Spending time with my furry friend, Molly, is always the highlight of the day. These days, I’ve been making a deliberate stop at this fitness corner in Jurong Lake Park, teaching her some new tricks. The process was not without mishap. Each barrier is higher than the other & Molly needed a lot of coaxing to cross the final one. There was once she hesitated, lost momentum & hit the rope instead of going over it. I didn’t react to the mishap because I didn’t want her to associate the last barrier as a thing to be feared. I repeated the whole drill, increase the amount of praise & excitement with each barrier & when she finally cleared the 3rd barrier, I rewarded her with plenty of praise & treats.
Training Molly isn’t without its peaks. Other than developing a better relationship between the 2 of us, I also tried applying some of the techniques I did with Molly in my work as well. Often, we Asians focus too much on the failures & gave too little encouragement. We thought that by criticizing, it’ll motivate the other party to perform even better. I do make this mistake from time to time as this culture is too ingrained in me(yup, I had it hard from my mom), till I did some research on dogs & then applied the techniques in Molly’s training. I try to remember each success I had with Molly whenever I hit a roadblock with my students. Work isn’t smooth sailing all the time but I’m beginning to see some results in the behavior of 2 of my most difficult students.
Whatever we do in our lives, does make a difference. It’s just a matter of recognizing the opportunity & act on it positively. Of course, the same darn old pessimists will just look at me & say,
“You’re so full of optimism.”[sarcasm]
