While it may seem like I’m sending similar content every week, I’m actually building towards more ambitious projects.
In the system that I’ve developed since I started working on Those Stories, I’ve focused on how smaller pieces could build toward my goals by sharing small doses of insight. Instead of going straight for the high dive, I’m trying to making smaller jumps to increase my comfort level.
It’s common language to think of pursuing big goals as “jumping-off points.” The vernacular around a lot of creative processes is that we are taking leaps.
I’ve found that many people will encourage you to leap without providing any instructions on how to fall gracefully or what to do when the landing is a failure.
There’s genuine pain in falling after big leaps—look at the high diving board.
I’ve only attempted a handful of high dives in my life, and they all ended in the same way—a belly flop. We’re not talking metaphorically. This diving board was about 10 feet above the water. But water at that height feels like cement when you hit it. It’s impossible to breathe for several minutes after a failed high dive. After a couple of attempts, I gave up.
I could have used a diving coach who would have never let me start trying to dive on that diving board. My mediocre diving skills from a regular board had no translation point to the high dive, much like some of my less successful creative leaps.
So, if you’re thinking about helping someone master a giant leap, understand gravity. Your idea will come into contact with the surface of reality. We can train people to move into the water with more grace (and less splash). The alternative is just encouraging random jumps—many people will stop attempting them quickly.
Good diving coaches start very small. They have new divers sit on the edge of the pool and just lean into the water. Then the coach increases the difficulty just enough—starting divers on their knees and then standing—so that swimmers are comfortable and mistakes are only mildly painful. Only once the technique is mastered will they move to the regular diving board.
I’ve seen coaches use the same technique on the diving board that they use on the side of the pool. First, they have the divers sit, then stand and then finally leap with the spring.
To become a diver from there, someone has to want to be a diver. Eventually, you’re not going to convince someone to jump off the board from great heights.
So diving coaches continue to ease their athletes into diving. Good coaches work on training a diver’s skills so that even when the diver makes mistakes, they’re motivated to climb the platform again.
Once you master your local pool options, training to do tricks and practicing form requires divers to use harnesses and trampolines—so they can practice without having to worry about gravity. But all divers have to use gravity as a tool. Falling with style is what happens after we make that jump.
And then one day, we’re 90 feet in the air (the tallest Olympic diving board), and no longer worried about becoming a pancake. We’re just hoping we don’t make too big of a splash because we’ll lose points from the judges.
I don’t need a leaping technique to move toward my goals. I need a diving technique because the ground always arrives. I measure progress by how far away I can get from the ground—my comfort zone—with each attempt.