Michael and I have just returned from an epic week in the Maldives with our friends David and Gaelle, on board the Ocean Divine.
Every day we’d free dive (a kind of underwater diving where you hold your breath instead of using scuba gear), snorkel, scuba dive, feed reef sharks and swim with manta rays. We saw some beautiful and crazy stuff. One day, I seriously think I saw a manta ray give birth to an alien… We sent it off to the Manta Ray Research Centre but haven’t heard back yet… #alienconspiracy? Haha.
But the best part of the trip was, without a doubt, improving my free diving skills. If you don’t know what free diving is, basically, you take a breath in, and then you hold that breath and use it to take you underwater and all the way to the bottom of a guide rope (about 60 metres) and then use that breath to get you back up again.
I’ve been free diving for a while now and I freaking love it. It pushes my boundaries in all the best ways and, ok stay with me through this bit, but I love what it teaches me about life. You know, there’s no bullsh*t under water.
There are two things that I take away every time I dive:
ONE: You have to be in control of your mind.
When you’re free diving, you can’t look at the surface otherwise you will PANIC. Seriously. You’ve just gotta follow that rope. All that you can focus on what you’re doing at the moment – you’ve gotta stay in the zone, stay in the present.
If you can practice and apply that kind of mental resilience to other parts of your life, you’re on to a winning strategy for success. Yeah, it ain’t easy, but trust me, it pays off.
TWO: There’s no Plan B.
There’s no fail safe when you free dive – no back up scuba gear or breathing apparatus. And that’s kind of the way I like to think about life. You know how you do something because there’s no other option? When there’s a Plan B you’re less likely to follow through with Plan A.
So, when I set my mind to achieve a goal, I don’t come up with back up plans. It takes mental strength to commit fully to something, but when there’s no safety net, you can bet you’re gonna do everything in your power to make it work!
I’m now back in Aus and am pretty flat out training for Ironman. Make sure you sign up to my newsletter to stay up to date with my progress.
Until next time, keep kicking goals!
Turia xx
