This week I had the opportunity to go black water rafting with friends.
As I kid I always shied away from participating in outdoor activities that might have been considered risky. Given the choice, I would sit and watch while everyone else exerted themselves with physical exercise. And when it comes to water, I have always chosen to stay out of the water to hide my lack of confidence after being caught in a rip as a teenager.
This was an opportunity to step outside of my comfort zone in a way that I never have before. I thought of lots of reasons why I couldn’t do it – what if I couldn’t wear my glasses and couldn’t see anything, I tweaked me knee a few weeks ago so maybe I wouldn’t be able to handle it, I’m sure I can find lots of work to do as an excuse to not go……you get the idea. In the end, I just said yes before I had the chance to overthink and talk myself out of giving it a go. Before I knew it, we were in the car on our way to Waitomo chatting about all sorts of things along the way, while I was mentally pooping myself on the inside.
Once we got there and all kitted up in our wetsuits and gumboots, we got given the option to do the jumps with our inner tube or to slide down if we weren’t brave enough to jump. The criteria was that if you did not participate in the practice jump right at the very start, then you would not be allowed to participate in any of the other jumps throughout the trip and would have to slide down these parts on your butt. I lined up at the back of the line silently debating with myself whether I was going to do the practice jump or not. When everyone else went in and I could see that the water wasn’t very deep, I thought, “what the hell” and gave it a go just so I didn’t have FOMO later on in the trip.
We spent two hours being guided through the caves underground in Waitomo. We climbed over rock formations, saw huge stalactites hanging from the cave roofs and saw the biggest weta I have ever seen in my life. Happy to say it was on the roof and not somewhere close enough to leap towards us. We jumped backwards off a waterfall in the dark with only an inner tube held to our butts as we jumped and floated in a tube train through the rapids as we gazed up at the roof to see what looked like big constellations of glow worms on the roof of the caves in the dark.
The friends I went on this adventure with were amazing and supportive in a way that made me feel like I could definitely do it, without being molly-coddled or that they doubted me at all. Just a gentle check in every now and then to make sure I was all good along with lots of jokes and one-liners that had all of the people in our group cracking up laughing at times.
All in all it was an amazing day, so much fun and something I would line up to do again without hesitation if I got the opportunity. It has left me reflecting on the trip and how my learnings from it relate to business and life in general.
We can think about things we want to do for so long that we think it to death and end up talking ourselves out of it. Sometimes the best stuff is on the other side of fear. You just need to pull your big kid panties up, get on with and do it. If by chance things don’t work out, at least you’re not wondering because you didn’t even try.
The people you have in your corner cheering you on makes a big difference. Are they going to help you step up and encourage you? Or will they be busy pointing out the negative stuff and making you worry about the scary side of it rather than living for the moment? Make sure you have a support team that are going to support and cheer you on, they’re going to be there if you need them and they’re going to point out the good stuff along your journey when you get side-tracked.
So feel the fear and ask yourself, are your support crew building you up or holding you back?
