trusting your great waves

This summer, my 7 year-old niece Ellie and my younger sister Ewa came to visit me in Ucluelet. Ellie lives in Toronto, she’s new to ocean life. We got her a wetsuit, grabbed boogie boards and headed to the beach.

I’m a great teacher of many things, one of them being boogie boarding. After learning the basics (legs together, heart lifted!), Ellie caught ride after ride. No longer wanting a push, she was flying on her own, all smiles, confident and completely hooked.

About an hour in, Ellie had her first wipe out.

Then… she didn’t want to boogie anymore.

How many times have you been here?

Things are going well, your confidence is up and you’re even having fun. Then — one thing happens and boom — the floor shatters under you.

Just like that, we’re afraid. Doubting our abilities, unable to trust, we stop doing that thing. That thing we were solid in, that made us happy. The size of the wave that took us down gets bigger, validating new beliefs that justify going back.

Back to what we know, who we’ve been.

This is what happens when we evolve. I’ve seen it with almost every coaching client. At first — growth feels good. There’s excitement and progress. Then — wipeout. We forget the upward movement we’ve had and compress.

The magic happens when we get back in the water.

We see the wave as smaller than it felt (it often is). We stand up, brush off and paddle back out. We remember to smile and have fun again. To trust the hundred other times it worked out. That’s my favourite part of the coaching journey — when you get here. From here — the whole ocean opens.

Ellie and I took a break on the beach. I asked her two things:

Me: How many amazing waves did you catch before the wipeout?

Ellie: A hundred.

Me: How many wipeouts did you have?

Ellie: One.

Me: You gunna let the one wave take away from the hundred you got?

Ellie: No!

Me: Well… let’s go back out there! Legs together, heart lifted!

Here’s to saying yes to the hundred waves you’ve already ridden and saying yes to riding so many more.

Much love,

Urszula

PS — I started sharing coaching gems via focused lil videos in IG. Check the first one out here.