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Have you remembered to have fun yet?

What happens when you’re too focussed on your goals and forget to have fun?

EshanessSo, a few years ago I was ready to give up kayaking. It stopped being any fun, trips often ended in tears and I spent a lot of time thinking I couldn’t do it and I ought to be better than I was. I was going through a very stressful time in my job, which also often ended in tears and left me feeling like I wasn’t good enough and I ought to be better at it. It seems unbelievable, but I have only just realised how similarly these two things made me feel as I’m writing this! Funnily enough, as I’ve said before, I left that job, and am making a career out of kayaking. My feelings about these two negative experiences were obviously feeding off of each other, and I have spent a lot of time trying to understand what went wrong, mostly so I can make sure I never put myself in the same position again. I thought I’d share what I learned just in case in helps someone else.

I had quite a clear plan of where I wanted my paddling to take me. I was working towards my 4 star/sea kayak leader award. I knew I lacked confidence in more challenging conditions, so I kept trying to develop that by pushing my skills. Every paddle was about putting myself in rougher water, or working on my leadership skills. Every paddle was a battle and left me feeling not good enough. This was hard as paddling was always the thing that I did to destress and re-equilibrate. Anyway, this all culminated in a pretty rubbish day that involved more shouting and swearing than was necessary, and some less than perfect behaviour from everyone concerned, and I decided that I was never going to paddle again. Everyone else paddled off for an epic adventure, and I stayed behind for some relaxing, and to try to find what the wise old women in my head had to say about it all. (Did you know there is a voice in your head that always knows the right thing to do or say, quite often she can’t get heard over the chattering of the ‘I can’t do it’ or I don’t deserve it, or whatever noisy voices younhave in your head. I mean, that voice is you, you always know what to do or say, we just sometimes forget to listen, or don’t trust it.) After 48 hours of exploring the coast, watching the waves and eating cake, I knew I had to take the pressure of and fall in love with paddling again. Luckily I was in a world class paddling destination with some people I trusted implicitly. So followed six months of paddling just for fun. Then, one day I woke up and I was ready to think about preparing for my assessment again. Well, the rest is history, I passed my assessment and now people pay me to take them paddling! What’s not to love. I’m never going to be your first choice coach to take you on the big seas. (But I know lots of great coaches to recommend if that’s what you want to do!) But if you want to take your first steps in pushing your comfort zone, and you want to be with someone who gets that what was ok yesterday feels too scary today for no real reason, then come and see me. But, most of all come and see me if you want to fall in love with paddling again, want to spend some time messing about in boats, or want to be in a place where you can reconnect with your wise old women (or man, or unspecified gender). It is so important make time to do the things that bring you joy.

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Time for an update!

Well, I did plan for this to be an occasional blog. Perhaps I ought to aim for more than twice a year.

It’s been an exciting year. I have had my first paying clients, run my first week long trips, planned my first trips abroad, gained a handful of new qualifications and met some amazing people.

I’ve spent time with some fantastic young people who find the school environment pretty challenging, but once they’re outdoors they begin to settle in to who they really are. It’s always amazing to be told you’re part of someone’s best day ever! That definitely never happened in my old job. I’ve also seen the change in me as I have spent more and more time outside where I can develop my skills and passions as I please. It’s so refreshing to be able to nurture that creative side of me that took a bit of a battering in the lab.

Don’t get me wrong, there are still stressful times (16 kids on SUPs being blown downstream…), and there’s definitely times when I miss a regular income, but I wouldn’t change back, ever.

I’m working on my plans for next year. There’s already trips to Sweden and Scotland in the pipeline. Closer to home I’m offering week long guided kayak trips around Norfolk. I’m working on plans for how to give people the opportunity to get out on a microadventure. I understand most people are very short on time, so need a way to get out for a quick blast of outdoors to restore their batteries.

So, that’s  all I have to say for now. Hopefully I’ll see you outdoors soon!

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Whose barriers are stopping you?

I can’t SUP. Although this is a picture of me looking quite relaxed standing on a SUP. I was also one of the first people in the country to get the new sheltered water SUP award, so I have a certificate to say that actually, I can SUP. I just find it hard to acknowledge those skills for some reason.

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On a similar theme, today I told two people I had never met before that I have just started a business as a paddlesport coach. I was honestly surprised that neither of them seemed shocked that I could possibly be doing something like that. In fact they were both quite envious that I had been brave enough to ditch the proper job, and follow a dream.

Both of these experiences show my brain’s defence mechanism. If you doubt your ability to the point you don’t even try something, you’re never going to fail. You might live a sad, dull life full of regrets and wistful thinking, but it will never be your fault that you didn’t follow your dreams, because it’s not your fault you don’t have those skills, is it? I know I’m not the only one who has these illogical (usually completely sub-conscious) thought processes. They will all be subtly different, and they will all have different origins, but pretty much everyone has their own barriers.

I met a properly inspirational adventurer last summer at a ‘Love her Wild’ weekend. We ended up working together in a goal setting workshop. Luckily for me, she was completely on top of her goals, so we focussed on mine. I have been thinking of being a professional coach for a while now, but always had a list of reasons why it wasn’t going to work, so I never had to try, so I never needed to fail.  She really helped me to see that a lot of my barriers weren’t really anywhere other than in my head. How can I say, ‘I’m not good enough’ when I have been coaching as a volunteer for 5 years, and people who know me are actually paying me to coach for them? How can I say I don’t have the right personality, when my coaching alter-ego manages just fine? What I learnt was, how will I ever know if I can do it, if I don’t try? And, mostly importantly how will I live with the regret of coming this far and not seeing it through. Learning to see through those safety mechanisms has really changed my attitude. That doesn’t mean I’m not sometimes hugely doubtful about whether I can pull this off, because sometimes I am. But it also means that if I fail it will be despite trying my hardest, rather than because I didn’t try at all.

PS Obviously there are plenty of real barriers too. (I’m never going to be a white water coach, (unless I decided that’s what I really wanted to do!), but I’m happy with that. Just try to work out if it’s a real barrier, or if it’s a defence-mechanism barrier.

 

Your run, your rules.

I’ve been thinking a lot about running recently and my place in the running world in particular. I thought I would try to collate my thoughts into a kind of logical form partially for my own benefit and partially in the hope that I can make at least one person feel better about where they are in their running world.

I have been running on and off for about 12 years. More off than on until the last three years when I started setting the right goals for me. I kept getting frustrated about how hard it was, and how slow I was. It’s so hard to believe you’re not a ‘proper’ runner when you’ve been practicing for so long and the elusive 30 minute target for 5 km seems so far away. Even the fantastic couch to 5 K program stops at 30 minutes. Still now on a slow day I’m not much more than 2/3 of the way round by 30 minutes. But, I’m happy with that. I know now that I can run 5 km pretty much without fail, and sometimes I even choose to add in some extra hills (I mean Norfolk hills, obviously. My hilly run today had a giddy 59 m of ascent, even after running up one hill twice.) And, I can see my PB creeping in the right direction.

What I been doing differently? Well, for a start acknowledging that my body has to work harder than an average body to move 5 km. I have weighed about 16 1/2 stone for a lot of the time I have been running and I still have to lose a stone before I am only overweight rather than obese. You only have to carry your shopping home from the supermarket to realise how much harder it is carrying 10 kg extra. Acknowledging this hasn’t made running any easier, but it has made it easier for me to not judge myself on other peoples goals, but to create my own achievable goals.

One of my new goals was to set a target number of runs to complete in a year. The year before I set this goal, I recorded every run I did in a year, so I basically just rounded it up a bit. My first goal was 100 runs in a year. This works out at about 2 runs a week, so it’s still achievable without worrying if I have a break every now and then. The only rule was that so long as I got my kit on, left the house and started running, it counted as a run. I found that this really took the pressure off and running became a habit, and something I really made an effort to fit in. This may have been a turning point…

My next goal was to cover 5 km on every run. I planned a few different 5 km routes, which I did each time I went out, even if I walked some of it, I still covered 5 km. Walking is better than sitting on the sofa! This time also gave me space to contemplate life, both on a big and a small scale. The last few years has been quite stressful, and have ended up with me making a big career change, which is still not quite as settled as I would like. Understanding that stuff going on in your head can have a big impact on your running is another important step. Sometimes feeling angry and frustrated can help you run and sometimes it can make running feel like it’s something else you can’t do or seem to have no control over. I have learnt that it’s ok to feel how you feel. No feelings or emotions are inherently bad. You feel like that for a reason. When I’m feeling bleugh, I feel drawn to the woods. It’s easy to practice mindfulness when you’re in nature. There’s always birdsong to hear or signs of changing seasons to see. Being in an environment that seems to be in equilibrium while constantly and inevitably changing really brings my focus back in to a bigger picture. Sometimes while I’m busy thinking about the leaves turning colour or how a tiny wren can make so much noise, I suddenly get a flash of deeper understanding about whatever had been bothering me.

It wasn’t until I was regularly running 5 km on every run that I set my final goal. One run every week is now dedicated to speed. I currently do 3×400 m as fast as I can. I run around the drainage pond at the front of my estate. Past the bus stop, much to the amusement of anyone waiting for the bus, and past the runner ducks if I’m lucky. Now my running was ready for this, it has made a real improvement. My average pace at my last parkrun was quicker than my pace for my third effort the first time I did this session.

So, my top tips. Set your own goals, listen to your body, be kind to yourself and remember if you put on your  running kit and go for a run, you are a runner and you belong.

 

 

Plans…

I’m so excited to have this time to do things I enjoy, and I’m looking forwards to getting to know myself again. Out of my six month adventure I have about six weeks that aren’t jam packed of things already.

In no particular order some things on my list include…

  • 10 km swim run event
  • 10 km (Run Norwich)
  • Solo over night paddle in Scotland
  • Wild camp in Norfolk
  • Cycle to all villages that have a ward named after them at the N&N
  • Relax!
  • Finish walking the coast from Ipswich to Hunstanton
  • Promote ‘This Girl Can’ paddling.

I’m not going to use this as a checklist, but it will be interesting to compare aspirations and reality…