Skating Through Life
While watching the figure skaters at the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, I came up with this theory on how we skate through life.
If you think about it, just like a pro athlete, we spend years doing the same things over and over and get really good at whatever the program is for our lives. We follow a set of rules, guidelines, and directions created by someone else.
When it’s time to shine at an important event, we’re a nervous wreck. And just like a figure skater who falls down after attempting to do something difficult and challenging, we have mishaps, too. How many of us get up after?
My heart aches for those who have lost a loved one; it really does. I have known loss in my life and have a lot of empathy for those who have lost an important person (or animal) in their life. It’s an ache that wants to linger, fill our thoughts with lack and sadness. And it doesn’t have to be through death; it could be just losing a person in your life. That hurts, too.
But here’s the thing. We can skate through life sticking to the program and not challenging it, or we can change our beliefs to what is best for us. And sadly, losing someone we love is a part of life – a part of our “routine” on the ice of life. We can let it consume us and ruin our chance to live our lives to the fullest, or we can accept the loss as part of living and learn to live with purpose despite it.
A Beautiful Life Is Attainable With the Right Mindset
Just as a seasoned skater makes skating look effortless, we, too, can live a beautiful life and make it look effortless. It’s a matter of putting in the effort first, then the effortless part just happens when the time is right. Can you imagine waking up each day knowing that you’re living the best life you can possibly live? I can.
Picture a free skate at the Olympics. The skaters had performed that routine many times over to perfect it. There is never perfection, though, because “perfection” does not truly exist. It is what a person deemed it to be. So, for example, you redo your living room, and to you it is perfection. Another person can see the same room and find fault with something or dislike it, thereby not seeing what you see as perfect. Perfection is subjective and not a true state.
Yet, so many of us, myself included, feel we need to be perfect to attain something or win the approval of someone. We’re following the program given to us as children that we’re not good enough. The skater’s coach reinforces the program over and over, and that’s exactly what happened to us as we grew up. The skater skates to judges who judge their performance. The judges determine whether a skater wins the competition. In our lives, the judges are our family, friends, teachers, and the like. They mirror back to us the image of ourselves that they see, and we get rewarded or not depending on what pleases them.
Years ago, my husband once asked me who I was dressing up for when we were going out to a club to see a band play. I told him, other women. He looked confused. I said that women can be judgmental, catty, and competitive. I was not that way, but I experienced it. The look over from head to foot. You know what I’m talking about. Is it a residual effect from the prehistoric days of women being competitive to procreate with the slim pick of males? I wonder.
I think it’s caused by insecurity. It was for me, but in a different way. I wanted to be liked and accepted. I felt like a lost puppy looking for a home. I wanted to be around people who saw the real me and respected me. We always know when we’re being respected.
We Have To Keep Getting Back Up
The “skater” in me was used to being rejected and hurt from falling so many times. I am a sensitive person, but I was never told it was okay to be that way. I retreated to solitude to stay upright on the ice of life. I wanted to be appreciated and loved for being who I am. Instead, for a good portion of my life, I was not.
So, I learned, like any human being would, given those circumstances, that being myself was not good enough. That’s why we interact with so many “plastic” people because they are just too darn scared to be who they are. They don’t want to get hurt. I was one of them.
When I first went on Facebook, I was terrified to post anything because I feared judgment from others. Seriously, it was a curated feed that showed a shadow of me. If I didn’t get many likes, I took it personally and had negative thoughts, like ‘I’m not good enough for this social media thing.’
I’m so thankful that I have since developed an appreciation for myself, changed my thinking, and become kinder to myself. And now, I care more about what I think of myself than what others do. In fact, I try hard not to think about what others think at all. We have no idea what another person is thinking, so why drive ourselves crazy worrying about what someone thinks of us?
Think about your life and the program you’ve been following throughout it. Is it bringing you smiles and lightness? Or do you face sadness and worry more often than you’d like to admit? If that’s the case, your early “program” didn’t do a good job of preparing you for life. That’s okay, though. We can change it.
We Can Change by Doing Three Easy Things
- Create or find positive affirmations that resonate with you, and repeat them to yourself multiple times a day. Our programs have been at work for years, so it may take a long time for the new information to sink in. Don’t get discouraged if, after a few months, nothing has changed. Keep going. Keep doing it. It does work!
- Pay more attention to what you are thinking. As soon as you catch yourself thinking something negative, stop it and change it into a positive thought. Tell the negative thoughts to get lost.
- Take an action that will help you live the life you desire. It doesn’t matter how small it is; just doing something positive will get your mind working in a new direction.
Let’s make our program as beautiful as the skaters’ routines on the ice at the Olympics. We deserve that. I’d love to hear how this resonates with you and if you can relate. Thank you so much for reading it.
To skating through life,
Francesca
Written by a human for humans.
© 2026 FrancescaME | All rights reserved.
NO AI TRAINING: Any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
