Never Say Can’t by Amanda Huber

I know this 3 year old. “Can’t” is very big with him.

The other day my brother had his hands full and was trying to get outside. He asked the 3 year old (we’ll call him Johnny) to open the door.

“I can’t” Johnny said without any hesitation.

“What do you mean? Just open the door” my brother replied.

Johnny looked at him and repeated “I can’t”.

Exasperated, my brother encouraged him to try again. “Johnny, you can open the door. Just turn the knob and pull.”

Johnny put his hand on the knob and nothing more. “I can’t” he again repeated.

At this point it would have been easier for my brother to just set something down and open the door himself. Instead he insisted on getting to the bottom of this mystery as to why Johnny couldn’t seem to complete this simple task.

“Johnny, it’s just like every other door in the house. You can open a door. Try again. Just turn the knob and then pull the door open.”

This time instead of trying to open the door, Johnny called for his mother who was sitting just outside to open it for them.

You’re probably wondering where I’m going with this, so I’ll explain. It occurred to me that there are a few reasons why Johnny couldn’t open the door:

1) Something made him think this door was different from other doors and therefore more challenging, so he assumed it would behave differently than other doors.
2) Because this was the door to the outside and not an interior door, he felt it was something to be afraid of.
3) Since adults usually open the door for him, he expected someone else to open it.

What doors do we avoid opening out of fear or because we have a preconceived notion that the task will be more difficult than the ones we complete on a daily basis? Do we expect others to open the doors for us?

Next time you’re faced with a challenge, take a step back and look at it as an “outside door” from the grown-ups point of view. Maybe the challenge is just an ordinary task that you could easily accomplish if you didn’t expect it to be difficult.

Maybe then you can turn an “I can’t” into an “I can”!