Happily a coach at the ice skating rink one Saturday whispered a few secrets in my ear. She suggested that I practice carrying my weight differently and gave me some exercises to strengthen the muscles in my ankles, knees, and thighs. Her parting words were, "You won't be able to skate backwards until you can do these exercises skating forwards."

So, every Saturday, after my daughter's ice skating lesson, I have been dutifully practicing. It's been three months so I would estimate I've skated for 1 1/2 hours on ten Saturdays. That is about 15 hours of practice. And, what do you know, this past Saturday, I pushed off from the wall and found that I could skate backwards. I'm not yet confident or fast, but I am managing to glide along without falling.

I love the feeling of mastery that comes with persevering through those basic, foundational steps. How often we want to skip the basics and zoom straight to the top. My daughter is learning to knit. She has been working on her knitting for, oh, about one week. As she worked on each stitch this weekend, she struggled to keep the yarn on the needles. I had to laugh when she held up her three rows of knitted stitches and announced, "Mom, I'm going to make a blanket now."

It can be challenging to support our employees through the learning curve when they want to gain experience and skill at the snap of a finger. My daughter wailed when she had to tear out her first three knitting rows and start over. To help, praise incremental progress toward those bigger goals and constantly remind your staff that the road to mastery take time. Be there to support them when they are learning and applaud them when they experience small successes. I gotta go now. I want to see if I can skate backwards just a tiny bit faster.

Keywords: coaching others, coaching employees, achieving goals, skill development