Remember a few weeks back I wrote about fear? My friend Chris had been visiting, and we’d spent a few days riffing on his big wave adventures and how he deals with fear. I came to the conclusion, after those discussions, that the majority of fear that I’ve dealt with in my life has been the fake stuff… stuck in the past or fretting about the future. So I set myself a little challenge. To do something that actually reminded me what real fear looked like.
I know, I know, it might seem a little strange that I went looking for fear, but for me, it made sense. A reality check, so that whenever the fraudulent stuff shows up, I can recognise it as fake fear.
And so I signed up for a freediving course. Because for me, breath holding underwater has always been connected with surfing bigger waves, and surfing bigger waves has probably been my only true encounter with real fear.
Of course, I think most people have a fear of drowning right ?! It would be weird not to be scared. But Chris reminded me how fear can actually help put your body in a good state…. but only if you manage it properly. And so I was curious to explore that concept a little more.
So the course I signed up for was an introduction to freediving… nothing drastic, just a couple of sessions at my local pool with 2 friends of mine.
The first session was all about static breath holding…. lying face down in the water, practising a specific breathing technique with a mask and snorkel on, and then, after slowing everything down and getting into a calm state, dropping the snorkel and holding your breath.
My first attempt went ok. I dropped the snorkel and tried to stay calm. Time felt as if it were going backwards, and after what seemed like forever (but was more like a minute), my brain kicked into overdrive. The voice in my head was getting louder and louder, more and more panicked. Telling myself that I needed to breathe …. right now. And in that moment, there was one single thought running through my head I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe.
Oh … yeah… this is what fear feels like.
Haha, when I came up (and after I’d taken those first few delicious breaths) I remember thinking to myself ‘WTF Linz, why did you think this would be fun ?!’
And so each attempt after that, the voice got louder. And my head raced away with itself. Almost as soon as I started each breath hold, it would kick in. Pure panic.
After the session, on the drive home, I felt pretty low. It really shouldn’t have been that hard. I should have done better. Why couldn’t I ignore the battle going on in my head? I’d learnt the science, I knew that my body could cope, but somehow my head was winning.
Two weeks later, I found myself back at the pool for the second session. I wasn’t as excited as I had been the last time haha because I knew what I was letting myself in for. We sat poolside for a while talking about some of the dangers of free diving, the stuff that can go wrong. Blackouts, seizures etc. Haha it felt like my head was putting all this information in a filing cabinet to bring back out later mid-breath hold.
But this time, we were focusing on dynamic training — swimming lengths underwater with weights and fins on.
And something changed for me. I got ready for my first attempt, trying not to psych myself out. Pushed off the wall and swam. I got to the end of the pool, and thought, huh, that felt kinda nice. Kinda easy.
And so I did it again. And again. And each time I went a little further. And somehow the voice in my head was quiet. Calmer than before.
Sure, in the last few seconds, when I was really pushing myself, it kicked in, but in a calmer way. More like a quiet warning, a red flag raised, rather than my previous monkey mind bulls*t.
At the end of the session, I felt like I wanted to carry on. Like maybe, I could go further. It felt like a completely contrasting experience to the static. I was stoked. This was actually pretty fun.
And over the last few days, I’ve been thinking about these two sessions and trying to figure out what made them so different. And when I realised, I recognised the parallels between my introduction to freediving and running a business.
The reason why the dynamic session felt so much easier? I was moving. I had momentum. There was a purpose, a goal, something tangible I could see in front of me that I was moving towards. My head (including my beloved monkey mind haha) had something to focus on.
The static session had felt impossible because I was just lying there. It seemed like there was nothing to do but fret about breathing. My mind went into overdrive, and totally sideswiped me.
Now of course, when it comes to free diving, I can’t ignore the static stuff. I need to get better at it. But in business? The static is totally useless.
It’s the fretting whether your product or service is good enough. It’s re-writing copy again and again and again because you’re too scared to hit ‘publish’. It’s the over-thinking, the over-analysing, the fear, the stress, the made up stories that you tell yourself at 2 in the morning.
And the scary thing? That kinda thinking is weirdly magnetic. It fuels more negative thoughts. It brings up more questions. And it keeps you from moving forward.
So when I look back at my first (but hopefully not my last) freediving experience, I think I’ve learnt two major lessons. Firstly …. it’s ALL in your head. Mindset is everything. If you can calm your monkey mind, you’re already way ahead of the pack.
And secondly, just-keep-swimming (or start, if you haven’t already !). Keep moving & learning as you go. You can read all the books, take all the courses, listen to all the experts, but the real, juicy lessons (the ones that actually propel you to where you want to go)? They live in the dynamic space. And the more you immerse yourself in the present moment, in actually doing the work, the less space there is for fear.
The definition of the word dynamic? A force that stimulates change or progress within a system.
Yes, please.