My Bad Knee

About 10 years ago, a friend convinced me to take up football (soccer, for some of you).

We’d meet up every Wednesday evening to play, and rather grandly, we named ourselves the Gurgaon Gunners.

I think it’s fair to say we were pretty poor players.

But we all had fun. After the training, we’d divide ourselves into two teams and have a game.

I really loved running around, trying to develop some dribbling and passing skills – and I especially loved to win.

In that endeavour, I tended to overdo it.

And I knew I had a dodgy knee.

After a few relatively mild, warning injuries – which I didn’t pay enough attention to - ?my football-playing enthusiasm took its toll.

I finally agreed to a minor knee surgery for a meniscus tear.

After which, I referred to the knee as ‘my bad knee’.

I overcompensated for the injury by not putting weight on my bad knee, not extending the range of motion, and convincing myself I could not do a proper quad stretch.

This continued for several years until I started to work out via an online fitness instructor, Lindsey Bomgren, on a daily basis.

I wasn’t aware, but through the exercises, I was building my knee strength and improving its range of motion.

But I still thought of that knee as my bad knee.

In one video, Lindsey shared that she’d also torn her meniscus and was recovering post-surgery.

But she didn’t refer to her knee as her bad knee – she referred to it as her healing knee.

That was a lightbulb moment for me.

What a fantastic change in perspective.

I decided to rebrand my bad knee as my healing knee.

And so it was!

Confident I was increasing flexibility, I further improved mobility, gained strength and soon recovered full knee health.

Inspired by this change in mindset, I wondered how often we label a capability, a trait, or a behaviour as something permanently negative.

Rather than as a work in progress – as something we are working to heal.

We can always ‘rebrand’.

• Rather than ‘my bad temper’, I’m working on healing my temper.
• Rather than ‘my bad proposal-writing’, I’m working on healing my proposal-writing.
• Rather than ‘my bad attitude’, I’m working on healing my attitude.

And as with my knee, it will probably take a fair amount of effort, and time to heal . But the sooner you catch it, the sooner you can heal it.

How was it that I didn’t heed earlier warnings – not just from myself – but from others?

Multiple doctors had said, ‘You need knee surgery.’

What stopped me from listening to them?

Definitely some denial. But also a perceived lack of empathy on their side, resulting in a lack of trust on mine.

Only when a physiotherapist calmly and gently asked, ‘What makes you believe you don’t need knee surgery?’ did I pause and understand that surgery was the best option.

For me, it was the ‘how’.

How that person asked me, rather than told me.

And a final awareness from this experience - it’s not always possible to heal by yourself, you really do need your team of supporters.

@Andrea Stone, Stone Leadership