I recently interviewed a woman called Sophie Pierce who, if you haven’t heard of her, rowed the Atlantic in 54 days this year with cystic fibrosis. She was literally in a tiny rowing boat with 3 other women for 54 days. That’s nearly two months. Two periods. 162 meals. Two full moons. 1,080,000 breaths.
During our conversation it occurred to me that one of the benefits of the human mind is that we often can’t comprehend the hugeness of something when we agree to do it. And then we just have to get on with it once we realise the massiveness of the undertaking. Or, if we’re lucky, we don’t realise it until we’ve done it and are looking back on it.
I feel like that about the London marathon I ran (how did I do that..). I wonder if women feel like that after giving birth. Sophie said she definitely felt like that during this epic row.
How do humans do epic things? (Hint: stop catastrophising)
It made me think about what it is that gives some humans the ability to do the things they want to do while others get stuck. And I think it’s the obsession with the ‘how.’
If you’re going to do something like row the Atlantic with cystic fibrosis you need to be prepared and work out what’s involved. But, as Sophie says in the chat, there’s a limit to that because you can’t actually comprehend in advance how it’s going to feel or what you’ll need to do every day to get through it. I think some of us get to that point of “oh this is the limit of what I can actually prepare for” and think some version of “right, fuckit, let’s just do it, I’ll manage it as it happens.”
Others get to the limit of what you can prepare for and then start going off trying to anxiously imagine every single detail, control everything and prepare for the worst by relentlessly imagining the worst and worrying (also known as catastrophising). This is not processing, preparing or staying in control – it’s self-sabotage. It’s energy-draining. It’s programming yourself to fear.
Sometimes you have to just leap
So, I think that all that those of us who get stuck need to do is to identify that jumping off point where it becomes about faith and fuckit rather than control and fear. For that you need to understand that no amount of imagining the worst will stop it from happening. You need to trust yourself to handle whatever does. And to believe in yourself to solve problems and deal with shit as you go (which you’re already doing every day but probably not paying attention to).
That’s what allows us to stop being obsessed with the how – and to start getting obsessed with the why instead. Which is by far the bigger motivator for many of us if we’d only tap into it more. It’s also a great weapon against catastrophising.
So, what’s the thing you’re currently not doing because you can’t figure out how?
And what would happen if you just took one step towards it and trusted that, after that, the next one would appear?
Sophie was the first woman to row the Atlantic with cystic fibrosis – it’s an amazing achievement. Listen to the full chat with Sophie here.
And if you’d like to tackle that catastrophising, resilience coaching is the process for you. Book a free intro call to find out how it works.
