“Your only goal in this right now is to survive for 5 minutes.”
Then, with your feet bound and hands tied behind your back, you’re shoved into a nine-foot-deep pool.
Welcome to the Navy Seal training drill called “Drown-Proofing.”
It’s pretty simple. A cadre pushes you (bound at the hands and feet) into a pool and starts a timer for 5 minutes. Don’t die.
Think you can fight hard enough to stay afloat? You’ll die… Fighting to keep your head above water is what kills you.
The way to pass drown-proofing is to stop fighting, accept that staying above water is impossible, and you will eventually succumb and go under.
So, you let yourself sink to the bottom of the pool. When you find the bottom, you realize that you can use it and leg-thrust yourself back up to the surface and take a breath.
Relax and repeat for five minutes.
Congrats, you’re drown-proofed.
Drown-proofing teaches you to overcome panic, lean into the inevitable, and trust your resourcefulness, but that’s not my point.
My point is: You could have died trying to DIY your way out of drown-proofing. If you had a lifeguard friend, you could have spent a day trying it repeatedly until you figured it out. Or you can spend 2 minutes reading my post and learn the secret.
If you’re facing a problem repeatedly, you need to stop DIY’ing it. That’s part of (maybe all of) your problem. Find someone who’s done it, and buy their playbook.
Do they coach? – Buy coaching.
Do they work on cars? – Pay for a diagnostic and advice.
They’re an amazing photographer? Buy a couple of hours of their time to show you how what they know. You can go from newb to decent photographer in just a couple of hours instead of years.
**Bonus**
Since this drown-proofing post is still a metaphor for fall, if one “solution” isn’t working long-term, LET GO so you can find the right solution elsewhere.
Warning: It may be at the bottom.
