What I learned on the pickleball court

Keep trying new things: Ultimately I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. I mean maybe my reputation was at stake but since no one has ever viewed me as being the least bit athletic, the only real risk was to my ego. Guess what? I had fun, and turns out I am a natural at serving - who knew?

This was a solid reminder that if you don't try new ways of doing things you'll never know what you could be missing out on. There is likely far more reward (growth, learning) than risk (ego/looking dumb).

Communication & collaboration: Did I mention my partner is also my husband. Eek! We don't do (m)any extra curricular activities together and while we have established a good healthy communication style when it comes to our marriage, our family and our household - it all changes when you're on the court facing that final pickle point! We quickly realized we need to work on calling our shots, trusting each other and leaning into our shared competitiveness if we want to improve our results.

Manage expectations: Not every game is going to be a winner. We won our first game playing against other novices and it felt amazing, but then we lost the two next rounds which hurt. The following week we played against a team who had far more experience and they smoked us! Still we had a lot of fun and at the very least got a better workout.

Play to your strengths and work on your weaknesses: I was shocked to have such a good serve out of the gate, it made me confident enough to try and dink! I wasn't bad but I know I need to work on my backhand if I really want to win!

Celebrate wins and losses: Even though we have never played before, I have to admit disappointment that we haven’t won any of our matches so far - wer’e lucky if we eke out a W in one out of every three games but our scores are improving! I remind myself of my goals - leave the house, be social, stay active and try new things. Oh and come up with more pickle puns - they're dill-lightful.