With summer kicking off, I thought I would share an article I wrote a few years ago about safety on the course. Enjoy!
An Accident…
I had an accident on the ropes course this week…
Ropes CourseNot really, I actually just cut myself while shaving.
Wait, what? How could these two things possibly be related?
I’ve been shaving my legs for over 35 years. It’s just one of those routine chores I don’t give a lot of thought to anymore. I just do it. I suppose you could say I’m an expert at it as I probably go close to 365 days straight without an accident on a pretty regular basis.
This week, however, I was in a hurry–and guess what? I needed a few bandaids after my hurried carelessness caused an injury. As the sting set in I started questioning myself on how I could possibly still be injuring myself after doing this task for so many years. Then it dawned on me… this is why facilitators have accidents.
Statistically, more staff have accidents than participants. Why is this? We get comfortable, we get busy, we get distracted, we get in a hurry… Suddenly that critical routine task gets flubbed and what happens? Accidents happen.
After making this connection, I have thought about it numerous times. It actually rattled me to think that I could have injured myself or someone else because of my careless error. I’ve thought about it enough to where I thought it was ‘newsletter article’ worthy this week. It made me reflect on a few things that I’d like to share with you. Ask yourself these questions:
What routine task are you responsible for that could have negative consequences if you aren’t bringing your full self to the task?
What precautions do you take to avoid falling into a rut?
If you have made a mistake, what did you learn (and now practice) so that it won’t happen again?
I hope this metaphor gets you thinking. Have a great (and accident free!) week!
Enjoy!
Have fun out there,
Michelle Cummings
Michelle
Michelle Cummings
Owner/Trainer/Big Wheel
Training Wheels
www.training-wheels.com
Founder / Facilitator / Big Wheel of Training Wheels
