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From Triple P to Double P

When you’re anxious or feeling overwhelmed, it is often difficult to move on. We’re avoiding particular situations or suffer from Triple P: perfectionism, procrastination, paralysis. The challenge is to bring it back to proper proportions.

Let me share a story my friend Anna told me recently. When she was 6 years old, she started taking swimming lessons. Her father had already taught her how to swim in the sea during a long, hot summer-vacation. During the fall of that year, they started taking weekly swimming-classes at the local indoor pool, to sophisticate her strokes and to prepare for the official diploma.

There was however one problem: although Anna already knew how to swim, she did not dare to jump into the pool standing on the starting block. Looking from above, the water seemed so deep and so vast, as if it would swallow her. Only when the swimming teacher would point his index finger at her, pretending he would push her in, she would jump immediately. Even scarier than jumping into the pool, was being pushed in and losing control of the jump altogether.

The result of this was, that once during a full-hour class, she kept standing on the starting block and did not get into the pool at all. Her father was outraged. They had to get up very early in the mornings to attend these classes before school started, and she had wasted their time by not even getting wet. Something had to change!

At the end of that very week, on Friday-afternoon, her father patiently took Anna to the pool and they changed into their swimsuits. Since she was not afraid of jumping into shallow water at the opposite side of the pool, he asked her to jump in there first. From that point onwards, they moved forward inch by inch, to the deeper part. Because “if you dare to jump here, come on, this is only one inch deeper, you can do this too,” her dad told her. She kept jumping, while her father was cheering. 

It took the whole afternoon, but they continued to make progress, finally arriving near the starting block. By then, the difference between jumping into deep water from the side of the pool or from the starting block, 15 inches higher, did not make such a big difference anymore. She jumped in!

Relieved and feeling very victorious, they left the pool that Friday afternoon, happy to start the weekend.

The lesson of this experience is simple. Eat the elephant one bite at a time. Whenever you feel overwhelmed and anxious, it just takes one deep breath and a small, first step. We can always start with the jump in shallow water…