Lessons in Learning to Surf
There’s a beautiful quote in Amy Poehler’s book “Yes, Please” that I think about a lot:
“Change is the only constant. Your ability to navigate and tolerate change and its painful uncomfortableness directly correlates to your happiness and general well-being. See what I just did there? I saved you thousands of dollars on self-help books. If you can surf your life rather than plant your feet, you will be happier.” – Amy Poehler, “Yes, Please”
When change comes (and it will), learning to surf can feel impossible. I find myself wanting to freeze time, to make myself as small as possible, to strip away everything that feels uncertain.
Over the past few months of change, I’ve been learning to surf. I’ve been doing freelance projects, volunteer projects, looking for full-time work that might be a good fit. (That’s the pitching part, because (re)learning to pitch again is like learning to surf.)
Getting used to the uncertainty has been liberating, frustrating, terrifying. At first it felt like being thrown to the wolves. But the more I’ve done it, the more I’ve had to learn to surf.
Step 1. Just get on the dang surfboard.
When I was 13, I tried to surf. The surfer teaching my brother was cute. I spent way too much time trying to look cool vs. listening to his instructions. Reader, it is difficult to look cool as you fight oncoming waves while simultaneously trying to hold a surfboard still and jump on top of it.
When you’re learning to (metaphorically) surf later in life, the need to look cool may have passed. This is a blessing. The most important thing now is to focus on trying to stand up on the board. This too is a blessing.
The problem with learning to stand up on the board? You won’t learn how to stand on the board without falling off the board. Repeatedly.
Step 2. Keep going.
When you’re learning and trying something new, people will inevitably say “keep going.” They will mean well, but as most of the people saying this to you are sailing by on their own surfboards in life this can feel infuriating and demoralizing as they breeze by, smiling.
And, perhaps even more infuriating, they are right.
There will be tries where you faceplant into the sea, where your foot will touch something slimy and undefinable, where you’ll feel like you’re in an 80s movie training montage that never ends, where you’ll wish for someone to show up and give you lessons. (No, that LinkedIn guru is not that person.)
By the 5th fall, or maybe the 500th, you will be exhausted.
But you will keep going.
Step 3. One step forward, two steps back.
You’re not done with the slog, however, once you learn to get back up.
You will make forward movements. They will be glorious. But then you’ll faceplant a few times in a row and you’ll have to learn to get up again. And again.
This will feel bleak. But, in the process, you’ll learn that you can get up again.
You may question everything. Most importantly yourself. And since you’re not 13 anymore, those faceplants hurt—precisely because you’re out of practice of trying.
That’s the bananas part, really, that you’re so out of practice at pitching and trying new things, that things you were once good at now seem impossible.
But that’s the point. You’re learning that they are possible. Again. One success and five faceplants and one success at a time.
Those faceplants? They aren’t faceplants at all. They’re just learning that trying new things means learning new information. With each bit of new information you get? You become stronger.
(Even though sometimes you will find yourself doubting everything.)
But it’s okay. You’re learning to surf.
Step 4. Riding the waves.
So much in life, especially on social media, has a narrative that success can be wrapped up in a 20-second video. This is a lie.
We don’t learn to surf while paying attention to everyone else. We learn to surf when we listen to the waves and ourselves.
This might be the scariest step of all. Trusting that we have gathered knowledge and expertise along the way and can relax into the waves that come.
The bit about pitching.
The day after I was laid off earlier this year due to a business reorg, I snuggled baby goats. I was with a dear friend in rural West Virginia. A kid fell asleep in my arms, its ribs softly rising and falling underneath my hands.
At the same time, I felt like everything was breaking, that all my continuity was slipping through my fingers as this tiny creature rested in my lap.
Since then I’ve been working with brands on marketing projects and have started pitching some writing projects too. I’ve been learning to surf.
Pitching myself for this work has meant faceplanting and succeeding and getting up again and again and again. It’s meant relaxing into the uncertainty that is ahead and continuing to choose to get up. Again, then again.