More on Patience and Perpective

Today's post is quick, and connects to yesterday's.  We spent all day waiting for breeze again today; and the race committee made us go out and sit in the pouring rain to do so.  Almost everyone, myself included, complained about the decision, but at the end of the day I respect it.  Here's why: Our race committee has a duty to try and get a certain amount of good races in over the course of the week.  They are not in charge of the weather, so they have to do their best to plan for us to be positioned in order to take advantage of what conditions we do have.  Today, their best play was to have us out on the water so that whatever wind did fill, we could race in it as soon as possible.  There was no guarantee there would be wind, but if their had been we would have been happy to race, rain or no.  For that reason, they made the right choice, and for that reason, we as competitors have to learn patience and to put ourselves in their shoes.  Seeing things from the perspective of the race committee is important for a sailor, just as being able to objectively look at difficult situations is important for any person.  Patience and realizing the importance of analyzing obstacles in our daily life is important as it will allow us to flow with them, and better react to them.  That kind of awareness is greatly important to success in anything.

Surprising yourself, and having patience

Today's post is going to be a bit shorter as we have an early start time tomorrow and I am going to need some sleep tonight.  Today was a long day.  I showed up at the boat park at 9 this morning, we waited until 2:20 for wind, didn't start a race until almost four, and finally left at 6 this evening.  For anyone, waiting around for 5 plus hours seems brutal, but I have never been good at it.  In fact, for as long as I can remember, waiting around with nothing to do has been very bad for my sailing.  I have an incredibly hard time getting myself back in the right frame of mind after waiting has lulled me into a near sleep state.  In all honesty, it saps my motivation to go out when waiting stretches that long.  That being said, today I did it right.  I stayed out of the sun, drank gallons of water, ate properly, and when the time came I got my heart rate up and excelled.  Now, I don't pretend to have the formula exactly down, but I have learned a few things about myself in the process.  The first is that I am capable of surprising myself, and learning new things about myself.  The second is that I absolutely have to be excited about sailing to do well.  Prior to today, I thought that I could grin and bear it (yesterday was clearly an example of why that isn't true); but today I realized that I could get excited about something even in my state of low stimulation.  I jumped around a bit, got my blood flowing, and suddenly my mind was working and I was excited to get on the water and use my energy.  I love sailing, and all I needed was to get my body to match that love with a little excitement of it's own.

This leads to a lesson from sailing today.  There were two points on the race course today where I forced myself to be patient and let things develop when normally I might have been quick to act differently.  Now, I won't say that I'm a genius and I saw something brilliant that no one else saw; what did happen was I forced myself to make a decision and stick with it.  We have all heard someone say something along the lines of "trust your gut".  It's a horrible cliche because we all know our guts can be wrong.  That being said, when you spend your life developing a skill or putting yourself wholly into something, you start to notice things without even noticing them.  It's when that happens, you get that little voice in your head telling you what to do, that you should listen.  Have patience and believe in yourself.  That little voice in your head is you, your brain just has to filter out the noise around it.

Welcome to Day 1

I have tried blogging once before.  It was short lived and probably too personal for anyone including most sailors to really enjoy reading it.  Truth be told, I thought the idea pretentious at the time.  I didn't think that I had any type of amazing perspective on sailing or life that would necessitate my own blog.  Sitting here, typing away, I can tell you now that I still won't be blowing your minds with my day to day ramblings.  That being said, I hope that every once in a while I manage to put together a coherent idea or two that helps you gain some perspective on an issue in your life.

Ok, now for an introduction.  My name is Derick, I'm 26, and I competitively race a 14' sailboat called a laser.  For the better part of the last four years I have been consumed by trying to live my dream of representing the US in the Olympics.  Born and raised in Seattle, WA, I began sailing at the age of 6 and racing sailboats at the age of 9.  For as long as I can remember sailing, the dream of going to the Olympics has been a part of me.  It has moulded my life around sailing, and has become such a part of me that I'm not entirely sure what I would be without that purpose.  It has taken me around the world, to places I would never have visited; and through those experiences I have some of the greatest friends anyone could ask for.  During the trials for the 2012 Olympics, sailing broke my heart, but as time heals all wounds, I'm back in the game.  Right now I'm in Miami sailing the second of five ISAF World Cup regattas, and that brings us to today.  Day 1.  One hell of a day...

Now, when I say one hell of a day, I should clarify that it was really more like a day from hell.  I could try and tell you that I did everything right, that I got screwed and nothing went my way; but the reality is this.  In sailing you make your own way.  It is an incredibly complex sport, especially when you are sailing by yourself, and the people that are successful on a daily basis are the ones that make the least mistakes.  Let me tell you, I made mistakes today.  I spent the whole day making decisions like my head was in a fog; and I consistently put myself in positions where I was not in control of my own destiny.  In all honesty, at the end of racing I felt like even getting out of bed this morning was a mistake.  As I reflect upon that now, I see how easy it is to feel sorry for yourself, and feel like the entire world is out to get you.  All day long as things were going wrong I felt like the deck was stacked against me, and I was getting screwed at every turn.  I felt like quitting and never looking back; and as I walked back to the apartment I'm renting, something hit me.  That attitude was at least half the problem.  I know you've all heard this before, but nothing good ever comes from sitting back feeling sorry for yourself.  This afternoon I was a walking, talking, moping cliche; and when that fact hit me I felt like and idiot.  I know a few things about myself, and one of those things is that I am internally strong enough to rebound from today.  Don't get me wrong, I let myself fall into the trap of being sad and mopey, and had I not caught myself doing that I may have stayed that way.  The thing I realized though, is that if I was strong enough to start this endeavor, I am strong enough to finish it.  I have to have enough confidence in myself to straighten up, get my self together, and come back fighting tomorrow; and I have to believe that and live it down to the core.

This brings me to my lesson for today.  In most things that we do in life, there won't be one right way or one right answer.  Today I blew two races in what is one of the most important regattas of the year. I know, however, that there are four more days of racing, and as many as nine races left in the series.  I also know that I am capable of making good decisions, and sailing at a much higher level than I did today.  I feel confident that tomorrow I will be able to put together a much better day of sailing, and continue that trend going forward in this event.  The reason I know all of these things is that in preparing for this event, and in sailing in general, I have put tens of thousands of hours into getting better at my craft, getting fit, and getting my mind prepared for racing against some of the best and brightest sailors in the world.  I don't pretend to have all of the answers, or to even have gone about it the right way during my entire journey thus far; but I do know this:  If, in everything you do in life, you put your entirety into what you are doing, you can approach any obstacle with confidence in yourself.  If you train, if you work hard and invest yourself in your future, you can be stand tall in the face of adverse conditions.  We may not always compete as well as we wish, but the true measure of what we achieve, is how we react when things do not go our way.  I, for one, know that when I launch my boat tomorrow, it will be a new day.  One where I control my destiny; and one where I determine the course of my future.