One of my biggest passions is stand up paddle boarding (if you didn’t already know that from last week’s blog post). I love it so much, partly because I pick up so many life lessons while out on my board.
Life Lessons From The Water
This is why I started my other blog, SUP: Spiritual Understanding & Prayer (on a SUP board). I wanted to record all the things that were being revealed to me out on the water. Like this for instance:
Today the water levels on the river were down a little bit from earlier this weekend, but the current was still rather swift (about 2.5-3 MPH). The owners of the SUP shop invited a group of us to go out for a mileage builder. The plan was to paddle downstream to the next harbor, and then back upstream against the fast current for a total of 8 miles round trip. The owner said, “It will be great training!” So I said, “Let’s do it!”
There were some eddies in the water and some swells from a barge ahead of us, but otherwise it was a really easy paddle downstream. We were moving really fast and it only took us half an hour to get to the other harbor. But we all knew, going back was going to be much, much tougher.
What took us half an hour going downstream took us two and a half hours going upstream to get back to where we started. We felt like we were on a treadmill! When we finally got view of our turnoff, it seemed like a mirage because it felt like we’d never reach it. I was getting blisters on my hands and all of us were experiencing fatigue. But giving up was not an option. We had to keep paddling and keep our eye on our destination. If we stopped for even just a moment, we would lose a lot of the ground we had gained. Once we finally made it back, we felt stronger and felt like we could accomplish anything! Click here to continue reading.
Keep Persevering
Sometimes in life it seems like we are paddling upstream. Oftentimes we feel like we’re not making any headway either in our life or our career (or both!). But what choice do we have except to keep going and keep persevering if we don’t want to get swept further downstream?
“Can Do” Attitude
We have to maintain a “can do” attitude instead of letting the “I can’t” voice in our heads take over. In last night’s webinar I talked about how to reframe the “I can’t” beliefs into “I CAN” beliefs to achieve success. Instead of listening to your inner critic say “you can’t,” tell yourself what you can do within your control to take steps toward success.
The example I used was someone who tells themselves, “I’m not a good public speaker.” Instead, say to yourself, “I can be a good public speaker with a few classes and some practice.” This is the difference between a defeatist attitude and a hopeful attitude.
I hope this week’s blog will be an encouragement for you to keep persevering in your dreams and your passions. If you need even more encouragement, check out this blog post I wrote in March about Jim Valvano’s famous “Never give up” speech. I hope you find motivation in his words and in my SUP blog.
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