Did you catch the excitement about 18 year-old Mikaela Shiffrin at the Sochi Olympic Games last month? She became the youngest Olympic gold medalist in women’s slalom history due to her exceptional technical skills. In a video piece about Shiffrin, she explained how she has spent hours studying the world’s top skiers, taking the best techniques from each one and molding them into her own style. How wise for someone so young to recognize the value of learning from others while staying true to herself.
Similarly, I was struck by the way Inline skaters borrow in a different way using a technique called drafting. According to About.com, drafting occurs when a skater stays very close behind the next skater ahead to reduce wind resistance, saving their energy during a race. Skating in the leader’s draft means the skaters that follow don’t have to work as hard.
If there’s something you’d like to receive, keep these athletes’ techniques in mind and find someone who is good at receiving. Borrow their techniques and use their draft so that you, too, can receive with grace and ease. For example, as I’ve mentioned earlier, I’m currently studying Wayne Dyer. In Wishes Fulfilled, he explains that the more effectively we use imagination, and combine it with the feeling of having received our wish, the more quickly and easily our wishes will be fulfilled. This is a practice I’m happy to borrow: imagining something so pleasing that it makes me feel good.