Sea Swimming

I have spoken in another post about how I climbed Everest in a year, which discussed one particular mini-challenge I set myself last year.

I am fortunate enough to live extremely close to the sea. I can see the sea from my window, I can smell it, I can hear it. Yet, I still find myself taking it for granted. Yeah, I walk to see it after a long day sometimes, I sit on the beach occasionally and I like to watch the sun set on the horizon, but I felt, this wasn’t enough. So, last September I decided I was going to swim in the sea every month of the year.

This is not really all too difficult! Sure it’s cold, but at the end of the day it is only 50 metres or so away! I hardly had any excuse not to. Despite this, I still found myself leaving the swim until the end of the month: every time I thought about it, my mind persuaded me that I still had until the end of the month, and there was no reason to do it now. This is an issue so many of us suffer from, we put things off. We wait until the last possible moment and sometimes, we just continually delay our goals and tasks, so in reality, they will never be done. This shouldn’t be the case.

Every time I swam in the sea, it was tough finding the motivation to initially head to the beach in my ‘busy’ life, and then hard also to jump in, but in all honesty, every time I got in, I was grateful I had managed to get that far. The coldness never lasted long, it was relaxing, provided good physical activity, woke me up and provided a small sense of achievement.

All the excuses I had run through, such as being too busy, and being pointless were forgot the second I got in the water. I actually think it improved my productivity in my studying as it provided an effective break. With hindsight, I don’t regret a single swim in the sea I did, and this year I am determined to go out swimming in the sea more often, without the need to derive motivation for a challenge.

This attitude can be applied to other small challenges you may set yourself (let me know in the comments what they are?), or to other important tasks, such as work, or studying, or a certain goal. Whatever it is, do it now! You won’t regret starting!