What I learned while flipped in the middle of a lake

       Let’s talk fear.

(If I had fear, there is
no way I could have
taken this ~pretty
dang cool~ photo)

 

Far too often, people don’t have time to chase their dreams because they are too busy hiding from fear. When I say ‘fear’ I don’t mean of spiders or heights, I mean the internal fears that we rarely even know exist. Like the unconscious fear of failing, or of disappointing someone. Of not being able to accomplish something, or of how difficult something may be. We often don’t admit to fearing these things aloud, and a majority of the time—we don’t admit to them internally to ourselves, either. We tell ourselves we are fine where we are, nothing is wrong, everything is good. But, staying where you feel safe is your mind’s unconscious way of cowering in fear.

Guess what—do you know what fear stands for?
F alse

E vidence

A ppearing

R eal
Fear is littttterally (name the show) pertaining to things that have not occurred yet. The things you fear are things that your mind made up that could happen, but are not actually in existence. When you fear, you are scared of false things that are appearing real to you because of thoughts you are having.

“Right now, you are in THIS moment. You are not thinking about what has happened up until now, you are not thinking about what is to come. You are HERE, NOW.”
— Me during every Spinning class I coach

^^ I want you to use that in life as well. Why waste time worrying about what has happened when it has already passed? And, more importantly… why ON EARTH should you waste time NOW worrying about what MAY happen in the future.
STOP fearing. Let your dreams in, and chase them.

Just today, I was in the middle of the quite vast Cayuga Lake^^ sculling in a single with one of my best friends. I took an off stroke and flipped completely over. That’s some scary shit when you are in the middle of a vast body of water not knowing what is in there with you. After about 15 attempts of trying to get back in, I had two thoughts:

1. Okay I am going to be eaten alive by some fresh water shark like thing.
2. This is going to be one long @$$ swim home.

— “Kat, I can’t do it, I’m too tired” (ok maybe a few curse words thrown in there)
— “While a smile on her face: “Colb come on, YOUMAKEYOU (not kidding—she said it), ‘can’t’ literally isn’t in your vocabulary, get up there”

 

Supposed to be me

Actually me

 

 

 

 

 

I let the fear of failing (and shark attack LOL) take over my mind and body, so that is all I could do. For just a few minutes I lost my YouMakeYou® mindset and there I was treading water in the middle of a ginormous lake.
Fear and ‘can’t’ are synonymous. You think you can’t do something because you are scared that you can’t, scared that you will fail, scared that it will be too hard, scared you will disappoint someone. But, those things are not real—they have not occurred yet! Stop focusing on fear, and start focusing on your dreams. Remove can’t from your vocabulary. NEVER believe that you can’t or won’t accomplish something because then you are right—you can’t.

Moral of the story: keep that YouMakeYou® mindset. It is amazing what you can accomplish with something as simple as thoughts.

XOXO, a very soaked Colby

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