“Let your fear of regret be stronger than your fear of failure.”

―Ruth Soukup

WHAT’S GOOD

Sunset Ridge Featured in Faith & Leadership

We are so proud and honored to have Sunset Ridge's story featured in Faith & Leadership! The article beautifully captures how our partnership with The Impact Guild helped us reimagine our campus and what it could mean for the neighborhood—ultimately giving rise to Charis Park, the Collective, and everything that's grown from it. It's a wonderful read and a great reminder of what's possible when a community dares to think beyond its walls. Read the full article here and see how the story is being told!

A Little Scary, A Little Fun

Taylor Bates, Deputy Director, Sunset Ridge Collective

My newly minted four-year-old daughter and my five-year-old son started swimming lessons for the first time a week ago. On day two, the program’s veteran teachers were lining preschoolers up on the diving board and sending them into the deep end of the pool sans floaties. One teacher stood on the board with the children; another waited in the water below to catch them. As a parent, I was fascinated by this.

My children had come home after day one adamantly refusing to jump off the diving board. My oldest insisted that I tell his teacher the next morning that he did not want to jump. She replied simply, “We’ll work on that.”

These teachers do not hesitate. They do not coddle. They have high expectations of the children. They’re encouraging and celebratory when it’s warranted. They’ve been doing this for decades. They’ve gained a particular wisdom over time.

Watching those swim instructors, I couldn’t help but make connections to the book I was reading poolside during my children’s lessons, Dopamine Kids by Michaeleen Doucleff. In it, she explores a decades-old misunderstanding of how dopamine affects us and argues that dopamine is fundamentally tied to motivation. Through the lens of two powerful disruptors of our natural dopamine cycle—screens and ultra-processed foods—she offers practical ways to reset the healthy rhythm of motivation, effort, and reward. Part of that reset, she says, involves doing things that are “a little scary, and a little fun.”

Our brains—and children’s brains—are motivated by a healthy dose of challenge and adventure, though each of us has a unique threshold and capacity for it. If you can find something that is “a little scary, and a little fun,” it can help regulate your dopamine cycle, motivating you to pursue more of that activity—ideally something that doesn’t involve a screen.

At the end of the day—the same day they had insisted they would not be jumping off the diving board—I asked my children how it felt. They both responded, “It was scary!”

“But was it a little fun, too?” I asked.

Over the course of the week, I watched their confidence and motivation soar through this healthy challenge. My normally shy five-year-old was introducing himself to new friends at the pool later that same day and asking them to play. He was doing cannonball after cannonball, honing his newly acquired skill of jumping into the water.

Even my four-year-old eventually jumped in all by herself by the end of the week.

As an adult, I find it harder to push myself to do things that are “a little scary, and a little fun.” There’s always an excuse—time and responsibilities, which are very real, or perhaps an even stronger tendency to stick with what feels comfortable, especially in my downtime. I just want to relax on the couch, phone in hand, and, to use the phrase ironically, unplug.

But according to Doucleff’s research, if we push against this instinct as adults and pursue hobbies and activities that do not involve a screen and include an element of novelty or challenge, we too can experience the deeper rewards of a well-balanced dopamine cycle. Sometimes those rewards are slower to emerge: planting a garden, learning to sew, picking up an instrument, or studying a new language. Often, they involve moving your body—riding a bike, going on a hike, or lending a hand to a neighbor.

Maybe this summer your diving board looks different than mine. Maybe it’s planting tomatoes, joining a class, learning a skill, meeting a neighbor, or trying something you’ve been putting off. Whatever it is, I wonder if there’s something waiting for you on the other side of a little fear and a little fun?