Given so many of my pals and peeps are just now getting home from Nationals, maybe feeling a bit of the post-Nationals blues, or even going into immediate panic about what team they’ll have next year.
Thought I’d re-share this oldie-but-goodie column from 2012 that always applies to this period.
As always, I hope it helps, and if you’d like more words of wisdom real-time from yours truly, feel free to join us in the online skydiving coaching group I lead anytime. Click here.
Big deep breaths, my friends.. big hugs too!
XO
March 2012
Blue Skies Magazine
Life Coaching Column #34
Issue #41
Yes Yes Yes
Every year when Nationals completes, we enjoy the holiday season taking a break from training and teams. The Thanksgiving Turkey gets cut, the Christmas tree goes up, and we enjoy the down time. When the New Year arrives and resolutions begin to fade, 4-way competitors go into what I’ve come to think of as the “season of stress.”
Oof, not awesome…
When we want to do 4-way, it can feel like this all-consuming stress cloud blanketing our life until we have our team confirmed. Our brain overflows with images of how our team may, or may not, play out. We text furiously with any players also vying for their team scenario to unfold, and we pretty much lose functionality in multiple other areas of our lives given our singular focus.
If we think about it though… this makes sense. Skydiving is a big love of our lives, and for the competitors out there, finding 4-way can feel like we’ve truly found our thing. Found the thing we are meant to do in this sport, and sometimes even our lives. On top of that, it’s super fun, we feel a part of something bigger than ourselves, we create life-long friendships, we get the excitement of going for it on the National stage, and it truly helps us grow in skydiving and life. With all that, it makes sense to think we must must must have a team.
On top of the positive reasons we want to make a team happen, there is the ever-present fear that if we don’t get a team together, we’ll have to wait another entire year, to have another shot at it. Another year to improve our skills. Another year to have the kind of fun, awesomeness, and friendship only a skydiving team can offer.
So yeah, it’s a big deal.
We care.
We care a lot.
As a result, we essentially stress from the moment we want said new team, until the moment everyone is fully committed.
Sometimes that can be months! Months of stress?? There’s got to be a better way…
In life coaching, we often talk about “attachment to the outcome,” i.e. anytime we believe our happiness is dependent on a specific thing happening.
In this example, it’s getting a 4-way team together. Because teams involve other people, this is an outcome we ultimately cannot control. I suppose if we had an evil soul and mega dirt on the people we want as teammates we could force them into it, but I’m guessing that wouldn’t end up in the most optimal team dynamic.
Anyway, anytime we are attached to any outcome, we feel stress. When we are attached to an outcome we cannot control, we feel extreme stress. Being stressed sucks. It feels awful, turns us into scary, uncool versions of ourselves, and ultimately works against the outcome we really want to happen.
When we’re attached to the outcome, stressed that something “must” happen, we put that vibe out there to the people we’re talking to. That vibe is read by others as pressure. And since no one likes to be pressured into anything, it’s much more likely they’ll resist you. You could be asking about doing a 4-way team, about getting vacation time approved at work, about a trip you really want your boyfriend or girlfriend to come on on. No matter what you’re asking about, asking with attachment, pushes people away. Asking with pressure, pushes people to say no.
Sh*t, you mean to say that I’m going through the agony of being constantly stressed… and it doesn’t even help me?
Yes. That’s exactly what I’m saying.
So what do we do? We want our 4-way team to come together. We want that vacation time to get approved. We want our boyfriend/girlfriend to come on that trip. We want people to say yes! Totally understandable.
My advice to you is to rest easy from the start. To trust that no matter what happens, it’s all good. To trust that lack of pressure actually draws people in. To trust that if you remain unattached, the people you’re wanting to influence will feel free, accepted, and that much more likely to want to be a part of whatever you’re doing.
