Most kids go through a phase of thinking they "can't do" something. Here's a beautiful letter a father wrote to his son about saying "I can't."

Children playing in water happily

By Eric Koelma | Co-Founder of The Mulberry Journal

You can't believe one thing and do another thing and be authentic.

You can't stay where you are and go where you want to go.

You can't make a stand if you're sitting in a corner.

You can't swim against the tide if you're not willing to swim.

You can't blame everyone else if you're not first willing to look at yourself objectively.

You can't expect change to be as easy to deal with as the status quo.

You can't achieve great things if what you're focusing on is what you're diminishing (i.e "I'm going to lose 5kg" is never as good as "I'm going to fit into X and feel more confident").

You can't just want it. You need to be willing to work on it every day. One day pushing forward 50% is much harder to maintain than 50 days pushing forward 1% (and the latter is compound).

You can't expect success if you spend every night watching TV.

You can't give others advice if you're not willing to live out that same advice.

You can't win an argument. You either lose, or you win and then you lose them.

You can't please everyone.

You can't influence change if you only ever follow instructions. You must create.

You can't skip the life lesson on delayed gratification.

You can't be someone you're not.

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Eric Koelma

Co-Founder of Mulberry

Eric is the dark horse behind Grace's passion for bringing homeschooling communities together. He matches his wife's creative enthusiasm with the underpinning structure of business and digital strategy: he's all logical precision and epic decision-making. Eric's also a rare kind of super-human who works best between 9pm and 2am and still manages to get up early and chase that wilful toddler, WITHOUT coffee (he hates the stuff!)

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