As a child, I always loved swimming. In my elementary school years, I joined a swim club. We would swim laps after school and the coaches explained we should think of our arms as knives gliding through chocolate pudding.
At each swim practice, I would swim my heart out, and no matter how hard I tried, I was always the slowest. I remember visualizing myself speeding down the lane, hoping that if I visualized it enough, it would come true.
There was only one day when I was able to pass another child in the lane. I celebrated as I passed them in the water, thinking this was the beginning of becoming the fast swimmer I wanted to be. It took less than a minute for the swimmer to pass me back, leaving me yet again as the slowest swimmer in the lane.
I was never sad about it, but I kept hoping that one day I could be the fastest.
I stopped swimming during my teens and early adult years, mostly due to having to wear a bathing suit in public and my own insecurities.
In my 30s and now 40s, I have revisited my love of swimming and regularly swim laps at local pools. I am not the fastest, but that is no longer my goal.
In my younger years, I would look at exercise as a tool for weight loss. With this narrow mindset, I did not make space in my perspective for all of the other benefits that exercise offers. If the only goal is weight loss and the results aren’t matching the goal, it’s easy to think the exercise isn’t working, and to stop.
I swim because I enjoy it. I get in the pool, look at the clock and swim laps for an hour. The time is the goal. I don’t count laps or the number of people I pass.
It’s interesting how we can give ourselves goals of what success looks like, and if we aren’t able to attain the goal, then we think we’ve failed. Instead of discrediting ourselves, we need to relook at the goal itself.
My gift is endurance, not speed. I prioritize swimming and lifting weights because they aid with stress management and improve my mood, and I enjoy it. If weight loss occurs, it’s a happy byproduct, but not the motivation.
This week, I shared a swim lane with another swimmer. After an hour of silently sharing the lane, he gave a big smile and told me that a month ago, he had been struggling to swim laps, and after a few short weeks of swimming, he’d seen an improvement in his stamina. That evening, he broke his personal best for lengths in an evening.
His grin stretched across his face from ear to ear. He was proud of himself, and it was a nice moment to witness.
Life is stressful and complicated and so many things feel outside of our control. When we are looking for small wins, we need to find a goal that matches the qualities we have.
Many years ago, I had a weightlifting coach who told me that my body was perfectly proportioned for lifting weights.
I replied: “Well it’s good thing that I don’t want to be a ballerina.”
charlahuber@outlook.com
