I Want to Surf Like You!
That’s what I told my surf coach my last trip to Hawaii.
Yes – that’s him in the photo-Fritz. Fritz doesn’t talk much. He paused, thought about it, and nodded. He not once said, “that’s never going to happen,” or “are you crazy” or anything like that. I appreciated that. He didn’t even smile. I think he understood exactly what I meant.
I’m all about targeting dreams, right? … then creating a plan to get it: set intermediary goals, create a game plan and execute with grit. But, that doesn’t mean that every dream I target is going to come true 100%. But having that dream in my mind keeps me on track.
Will I ever surf like Fritz? My Plan: by living to be 150 years old while maintaining my current fitness level, I can do it! So, that’s the dream I’m targeting. Yes, this dream is “unrealistic” from anyone’s point of view, but it doesn’t matter to me. Sometimes an unrealistic dream is what it takes to keep up the motivation to keep going.
I spend my days on the water catching waves, turning my board this way and that way, moving up on the board, moving back on my board. Most of the time, I have a really fun ride on the wave and do reasonably well. But as I paddle out, I play the ride back and see places where I could have stepped back more, stepped up more, turned more this way or that way, moved faster, pumped the board stronger, moved along a different line. So next time I vow to do something a little different– just different.
Fritz told me, “don’t worry about better, just different and see what happens.” Now he just says, “chance ‘em”: local speak for facing your fear and trying something new (or maybe just being stupid and trying something new). This is the same coach who told me 2 years ago, “there’s no wrong.” Every move I make has a different result. The same move on a different wave has a different result. It’s about getting past my fear and trying something new all the time – “chance ‘em.”
TODAY’S HOW TO
This could be the most outrageous dream I’ve targeted so far – to surf like this. But the journey is fun with moments of fear to overcome and fast-heart-beating thrill. I like the bigger waves and wonder how big could I drop. I know one thing for certain: I have to “chance ‘em” – and 89 years from now …
