Storytelling

Challenge & Selection

I remember an experience from 12 years ago. I volunteered to coach a school soccer team. I  worked with 10-year-olds who trained every weekend to participate in the intercollegiate  tournament that was held every year in the middle of the year. The first months of the year we  trained and we tried to participate in short tournaments to measure our forces with other  teams. When the year started the children were always enthusiastic and wanted to win all the  tournaments where we participated.   The children were very confident but when the results were not given they were discouraged  and said that this tournament was not important and what really mattered was the  intercollegiate tournament. And so with each short tournament where they participated, at  first they longed to be champions but when the result did not come, they said that the  tournament was not worth it.   That year we only won a short tournament, we participated in 5, and we also lost the  intercollegiate being in the last places.

Application

The following year everything was repeating itself, we participated in the first short  tournament and when we lost, the boys said that the tournament was not important. A  dejavu.

So I told the children the story of "The Fox and the Grapes", a story that my grandfather told  me when I was a child. I told them: On a very hot day, a thirsty fox came across a bunch of  large, juicy grapes on top of a bush. He stood on tiptoe and did his best to reach the grapes,  but they were too far away. The fox kept trying to jump with all her might over and over again  but she couldn't reach them. Now the fox raised her eyes and looked at the grapes with  distaste and said: Those grapes are green, they don't taste good, I don't want them. And she  left very angry.

Apply this method because as young children it would surely be difficult to motivate  them by being hard on them. That would have discouraged them even more.    Insight & Approach

At first they didn't understand what the story was about and I had to explain to them that we  were behaving like that fox who craved grapes and when she couldn't get them she said she  wasn't interested.

The same happened with the short tournaments in which we participated. That story was a  great revelation for the whole team, it helped us to commit more to the objectives set and  face all the tournaments where we participate with great responsibility. That year we  participated in 6 short tournaments and won 2. In the intercollegiate tournament we reached  a worthy third place. The team promised to fight to the end to achieve the objectives.

This course helped me remember this beautiful experience and understand that storytelling  can be very useful to help me get out of a mental block. I will try to use stories when  presenting an idea in my work.

