2 summers ago, right in the middle of our whitewater rafting trip on one of my fitness adventures, our guide suddenly stopped our raft. He pointed up to a cliff and said, “We’re going to pull the raft up to the side of the bank and anyone that wants to can climb to the top of the cliff and jump in the river.”
“How high is it?” I asked, knowing full well that the number didn’t matter. It was high!
“About 30 feet” our guide replied.
I gulped and all of the sudden my palms got sweaty and my heart started beating faster.
I forced a smile as everyone else in the raft seemed excited to jump.
“Am I the only scaredy-cat?,” I wondered silently to myself.
As we paddled the boat closer to the bank, we all began to ask each other, “are you going to do it?” “I don’t know, are you going to?” “I will if you do.”
As it began to appear that everyone in our raft was going to make the jump, and I didn’t want to be that one that stayed in the raft taking pictures, I reluctantly got out of the boat and started to make the climb up the cliff.
Our guide warned us to make sure we wanted to do the jump. “Once you get to the top, it’s too dangerous to climb back down,” he said. “So you have to make the jump.”
About halfway up, I started to get that anxious feeling. It was too late to turn back at this point, so I had no choice than to make the jump.
I started to think in my head what I was actually afraid of.
It was the unknown.
I had never done this before, so I didn’t know what to expect.
What if it hurts when I land? What if I hit a rock? What if I forgot how to swim and drown?
These are ridiculous thoughts, Scott, I said silently to myself. We’re with professional guides. What’s the likelihood of any of these happening? Pretty close to 0.
As we got to the top of the cliff and I watched the people in front of me jump into the freezing cold Colorado River, and make these huge splashes as they landed, I got more and more nervous.
“It’s almost your turn” the voice in my head said to me.
“You can do this.”
“No I can’t, it’s too high.”
“Yes you can.”
As the person in front of me jumped, I knew the strategy I had to take.
Just do it!
Yes I know that sounds simple, but I knew if I got to the edge of the cliff, looked down to see how far I had to jump, and thought about anything bad that could happen, that I would get more scared.
As soon as I got to the edge of the cliff, I had to take a leap of faith and jump immediately.
No regrets, right?
So I walked to the edge of the cliff, and looked at my guide.
“Are you ready” he asked?
“Yes” I barely managed to say.
1-2-3 JUMP!
SPLASH!
I hit the water and my whole body went under. A second later my head came out of the water and I confidently swam to my raft.
I did it!!
I fist bumped the others that had already done it with a huge smile on my face. I felt completely unstoppable!
This was all about breaking through my fears and limits.
If you look at what holds people back from expanding and deepening the quality of their lives, what prevents them from taking the actions that are necessary to transform their body, relationships, career, business or impact their kids?
Invariably, its fear! Fear of failure, fear of success, fear of rejection, fear of pain, and fear of the unknown.
Doing something physically scary, like jumping off a cliff, or fire-walking, like the great self-help guru Tony Robbins uses at his Unleash The Power Within events, teaches you to take action despite of fear.
After I jumped off the cliff, I felt unstoppable. My confidence was at new levels. This was a breakthrough for me about facing and overcoming my fears.
We have the inner strength to create the life that we want. We don’t have to settle for anything.
You have the inner power to change and control your destiny.
