Swimmers learn this early: thrash and you sink faster. Calm down, breathe, and the water starts helping.
CREATIVITY
WHAT THIS MEANS
Panic makes you heavier in water. Thrashing burns the air you need and pushes you down, while slow breathing and stillness let the water hold most of your weight for you. The instinct to fight is exactly wrong, and learning to go against it is the thing that makes deep water survivable.
There is a version of this in any situation that spikes. When the panic arrives, slow the breathing first and do nothing for ten seconds. Then act, because almost every decision made inside the thrash is worse than the one made just after it.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
Where does your panic make a hard thing harder?
MORE IN GROWTH, CHANGE & REINVENTION
- You’ll mispronounce words learning a new language. Native speakers mostly just appreciate that you’re trying.
- One rude customer at your summer job will teach you more about keeping your cool than a dozen nice ones.
- When you change, some people will act like you betrayed them. Often they’re just scared of changing too.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.