“You’re not university material.”
That’s what a professor told me in my first year.
Not as feedback. Not as encouragement. As a conclusion.
At the time, my life probably looked like evidence for his claim. My first two years of university were messy, filled with poor decisions, emotional immaturity, and a struggle to manage independence. If you judged my future based on that snapshot, his verdict might have felt justified.
But my life didn’t end there. And that’s why I believe so strongly in what I call the Yellow Light Method.
Because what saved me wasn’t perfection. It wasn’t being rescued. And it certainty wasn’t being written off. It was being given time to develop.
What is the Yellow Light?
A yellow light doesn’t mean ignoring problems or lowering standards. It means pause.
- Pause before criticism.
- Pause before panic.
- Pause before deciding that struggle equals failure.
It’s the space where learning happens and it’s a space our culture is rapidly eliminating.
We see the consequences everywhere and nowhere more vividly than on the football field.
Lessons from the Field
Sports make impatience visible. Fans, coaches, and analysts are quick to write players off after one bad game, one mistake, or one rough season. But some of the greatest stories in football teach a different lesson: Growth takes time.
- Tom Brady: Patience Before Greatness
Tom Brady was NOT a first-round draft pick. In fact, he was drafted 199th overall in the sixth round by the New England Patriots in the 2000 NFL Draft. His rookie season? Zero starts. One year on the bench, learning behind Dew Bledsoe.
Brady didn’t arrive as a finished product. He grew through observation, repetition, pressure, and failure. Even after early success, his most dominant seasons came years later.
Brady’s story isn’t about destiny.
It’s about patience. It’s about development.
Someone paused instead of panicking and the world witnessed the brilliant result.
2. Josh Allen: Early Struggle Doesn’t Predict the Outcome
Josh Allen’s rookie season with he Buffalo Bills was rocky. He only completed 52.8% of his passes, with a passer rating pf 67.9. These numbers led to widespread doubt and criticism about his ability to succeed at the NFL level.
If this happened today, most would have already written him off. Yet, the Buffalo Bills did something different. They stayed with the process.
Season by season, Allen’s accuracy has climbed, reaching elite levels around 70%. He has refined his mechanics, decision-making, and leadership, and has become one of the league’s top quarterbacks, evidenced by his AP NFL MVP honours last season.
His early struggles weren’t failure. They are evidence of development and progress.
3. Kyle Brandt and the Bears: Don’t Call the Game Too Early
Kyle Brandt of Good Morning Football has a way of spotting patterns most of us miss, and as a die-hard Bears fan for the last 40 years, I appreciate his sharp perspective.
He points out a familiar phenomena: mid-game, and sometimes even early on, social media explodes with declarations that the Bears are terrible. The season is over, and the game is lost.
And then… the Bears win.
Brandt’s point isn’t really about football. It’s about our human tendency to narrate failure before the story is finished. We hit red lights while the clock is still running.
This habit doesn’t just stay on social media, as it shows up in classrooms, offices, and homes, and it reminds us how easy it is to judge too soon.
When the Yellow Light Matters Most: Parenting
This same impatience shows up at home.
Some parents expect perfect grades. Perfect emotional regulation. Perfect judgement, even from developing brains.
Pause. Yellow light.
If a child never struggles, what are they learning? If every mistake triggers panic or criticism, what lesson sticks?
Psychologically, failure and struggle are essential. They teach:
- Problem-solving
- Emotional regulation
- Persistence
- Self-trust
When adults rush to fix, rescue, or criticize, children don’t grow stronger or learn to strive for excellence. They grow anxious. They develop learned helplessness, perfectionism, and self-doubt.
Perfectionism doesn’t produce excellence. It produces fear.
My Yellow Light Moment
I’ve lived this. I struggled. I fell. I disappointed people.
But my parents and grandparents did something rare.
- They didn’t save me from consequences.
- They didn’t remove the obstacles in my way.
- They didn’t shame me for needing time.
- They didn’t abandon me to “figure it out alone”.
They scaffolded my growth. They stayed present without taking over. They supported the process without controlling it. They trusted that learning sometimes requires discomfort.
That balance of not rescuing while also not rejecting, is how I eventually found my way and why I am now living my best life.
I didn’t grow despite struggling. I grew because I was allowed to struggle.
A Question Worth Sitting With
- If Tom Brady had been judged by his draft status…
- If Josh Allen had been written off after his first season…
- If the Bears game ended when fans declared it over…
What would we have missed?
Now the harder question:
Who might your child become if you stopped treating early struggle as a final verdict?
The yellow light method asks us to do something deeply countercultural:
- Pause before labeling
- Pause before predicting outcomes
- Pause before intervening out of anxiety
Because most lives worth admiring don’t look impressive in the early chapters. They look unfinished, and unfinished doesn’t mean broken. It means still becoming.
The real danger isn’t letting kids struggle when things are not going exactly according to plan. It’s deciding too early that their story is already written.
That’s the yellow light, and were all being asked to slow down.
*Please note that this post does not apply to mental health struggles which do require immediate attention and intervention.
At the table, phones often come out before the conversation really begins. Notifications pull us away. Photos get taken. Messages get answered. We sit beside one another, but not always with one another.