Threading is an artform. Take your time…

Go easy on yourself…

Recently, a Threading Course student struggled with her expectation that she could master the artform so quickly. An hour and a half in to our training session, she confessed that she didn’t think she was ‘cut out’ for this… it was one of those moments where I felt compelled to urge her to take it easy on herself and discover (as I have so many times) that expertise only comes with experience, practice and determination.

She hadn’t yet realised that no training course, in and of itself, can substitute for real-life experience…

She wanted to quit at that moment so I allowed her to – for 15 minutes! We spent time together downstairs, out of the ‘learning environment’, talking this over. As we sipped our tea, what I really wanted to convey to her was that she was looking at someone who had also struggled and that, like her, I had also found aspects of Threading distressingly hard to grasp at times (and believe me, controlling that cotton isn’t as easy as it looks!).

What do we want? And when do we want it? Now!!

That rally cry is so powerful… yet it can’t possibly apply to the student/teacher experience. In beauty therapy at least, nothing comes without having the runs on the board. Nothing quite beats the awful feeling that you could have done better. And nothing, absolutely nothing, beats the times that you and your client know you got it just right.

My wish for all my beauty therapy students?

Be young and inexperienced; but know that with time you too will join the ranks of trusted therapists. Change careers not because you gave up too early but because you found another calling. In the meantime stay with me… follow your heart and continue to learn. The rewards are incredible.

And finally know what I know: that in the very best of careers you never stop learning.