Take a Chance

By Rachel Hoeing

I was with a group of women the other day and one of them commented that they saw I had won a T-shirt through a contest on Facebook. The other replied and said, “She wins EVERYTHING! It’s not fair. I never win anything.”

In all honesty, I do win quite a bit of contests, raffles, giveaways, etc, but guess why I win them? I actually enter them!

I asked the two women who said they “never win anything” how often they actually enter giveaways and they both replied saying they try to win things every so often. Well ladies, how do you expect to win if you don’t enter?

When there is a raffle at school, I buy tickets. When there is a bucket to drop your business card into, I drop mine. When there is a picture on FB and says “comment to win,” I comment. When the bottom of my receipt says to fill out a survey to win something free, I go home and fill out the survey. When I get an email about winning a trip to Hilton Head, I click ENTER. (I am pretty savvy to the way it works now and can easily avoid gimmicks, too!)

I bet I only win about 5% of the contests I enter. To others it seems like I am always winning, but I know how many contests I entered where I never heard another peep after I bought my tickets, filled out my entry form, or commented on Facebook to win.

So you are probably asking why in the world I decided to blog about this today? It is because the more I started thinking about this scenario, I realized it could apply to so many things in life. It is a great teaching tool for our kids.

I would love to explain to my children that if you never take THE CHANCE, you never have A CHANCE.

– How do you ever expect to score the winning touchdown at a football game if you never try out for the team?

– How do you know you will never be able to do a pirouette if you don’t take ballet classes?

– You can’t complain about not having friends if you’ve never approached some kids in your class and initiated a conversation.

– Want to “get the girl?” Chances are that she’s not going to approach you, so if you don’t ask her on that date, you’ll never know if she would have gone.

– If your kid wishes he were more athletic, ask him when the last time was that he joined in a sport on the playground at school or tried shooting baskets in his driveway for practice.

– A big conversation in our house right now is making the honor roll. A’s and B’s won’t fall into your lap, but if you take a chance, put all your effort into your classes, and be the best you can be, Honor Roll just may happen.

I want to teach my children that they will never know until they try.

Take a chance.

It might be a chance that ends up with you flat on your face (literally or figuratively) or it could be a chance that brings you amazing rewards.