The Skydivers' Guide To Reality

"Do the thing and you shall have the power."

-Ralph Waldo Emerson

A few years back, I had the terrifying and wonderful opportunity to go skydiving.  It was my brothers birthday, and I had just graduated from university, and so we needed a way to celebrate.  My brother suggested skydiving, and he even convinced our parents to do it with us.  Now, skydiving had never been on my list of things I "needed" to experience before I die. In fact, I thought the act had the potential to actually shorten my opportunity to fulfill on the rest of that list.  But, with a little nudging from my brother, and the knowledge that my parents were going to participate, I readily agreed. Needless to say, it was one of our more exhilarating family outings.

The whole preparation was pretty straight forward.  We signed a huge packet full of waivers that basically said if we die it wasn't the skydiving company's fault.  Then we sat through a 10 minute class on jumping technique and next thing we knew it, we were in our one piece jump suits strapped to our tandem partners on a tiny plane headed for 13,000ft.

I was pretty calm until we got to jumping altitude. Although, I did have a momentary thought about how ironic it was that I had probably never been safer in an airplane given that I was strapped to a parachute and another highly experienced jumper.  Never the less, I started getting some nerves as I scooted to the edge of the plane.  My brother went first, and I was directly after him.  I hooked my legs outside the door of the plane, and in that split second before leaning out, the fear hit me.

I didn't realize it at the time, because I didn't have a very strong understanding of how the mind works, but my fear was not coming from the actual jump.  My fear was being generated 100% from inside me. In my mind I was thinking about all the things that could go wrong with the jump; all ending with me becoming a pancake on the ground below. If I couldn't have thought those thoughts, I wouldn't have experienced fear.

But, regardless of the fear, I made the decision to not take my thoughts in that moment very seriously. And just like that, I plunged out of that perfectly good airplane.

In the initial seconds of the fall, I struggled to breathe. Then of course I realized I was past the point of no return, and the only thing left to do was let go and relax.  The moment I stopped struggling, my breathing came back to me, and I got to experience the thrill ride of a 60 second free fall.

Our parachute opened without a hitch and we sailed our last few thousand feet down, taking in a breathtaking view of the Oregon countryside.  It was all over in less than 10 minutes, but it felt like hours.

So, what's the point of this all?  Well,  in the years since that skydive, I've gone about doing plenty of things I've been afraid to do, and I've realized that each one is like going skydiving all over again; just without the one piece jump suit and the tremendous amount of wind.  It doesn't matter if its making a bold request of a potential client, having a difficult conversation with a friend, or jumping out of a plane; I noticed for me it's pretty much the exact same internal experience.  I think that's how I was able to get myself to jump out of that plane in the first place... it wasn't all together unfamiliar.

Here's an example; the other day I went to go make a call and I noticed I was feeling some pretty strong fear.  I realized my mind had generated some scary thoughts about how the conversation could go poorly with a string of worst case scenarios.  I decided not to take my thinking very seriously and make the call anyway.  Initially, for the first few seconds as I heard the phone ring and the person on the other end answered, I struggled to get the words out.

At that point I realized, well, I'm on the phone already, there's no going back now, so I might as well calm down and say what I want to say.  My body relaxed, my breathing calmed down, and my words began to flow more naturally.  The conversation ended up being completely fine, and it turns out my scary thoughts had been completely fictional, as they so often are.

Just like jumping out of that airplane, once I was on the phone, it was easy.  Once I decided to not buy into my insecure thinking in the moment, I was able to take the action, and then my training and skills as a coach took over from there.

Whenever we do something new and outside our comfort zone, our minds are liable to generate some scary thoughts. If we know that ahead of time we can expect to feel some fear.  When we know it's all part of the process of taking some unfamiliar action that seems big or important or potentially dangerous inside our minds, then that no longer has to be something that stops us. We can move forward with a little bit of fear, knowing that it will always pass and give way to some new thinking... if we let it.

Coaching Exercise of the Week.

Let's get practical, shall we? I'd like to invite you to take a look at your own life.  

1. Pick something that you have done in your past that you were afraid to do.  Likely this was something that you were afraid to do ahead of time, but once you were actually doing it, it wasn't so bad... perhaps even fun.  Somehow you decided that your scary thoughts weren't worth taking seriously, and you took the action in spite of them.  
2. Now, look to the future.  Choose one of the things that you are afraid to do, yet you have a sneaky suspicion would move you in the direction of creating something you want in your life.  It could be anything, a phone call, a challenging conversation with your partner, asking for a raise, or asking that cute guy/girl out on a date. Notice the fear comes up while thinking about it, which means the fear is coming from your thinking, not the action itself.
3. Next, imagine that taking that action, is just like 'skydiving', or whatever your past version of not taking your thoughts seriously and trusting in your own wisdom is. Expect to feel a little fear right before you do it as your mind will likely be generating made up scary scenarios.  Imagine noticing that fear, but not paying particularly close attention to it, because it's just thought after all!
4. Then, actually take the scary action! 
5. Finally, Relax and enjoy the ride.  If it goes well, great.  If it goes poorly, you will handle it as best you can.  It's much easier to solve those real problems, than the illusory ones we make up in our heads.

Until Next time, Love and Light...

Coach Ty