You are one dive away from your dream dive but… Something is relentlessly stopping you. Maybe it is time you dare going out of your comfort zone? Here some tips
‘’If you want something you’ve never had, then you’ve got to do something you’ve never done’’
I saw so many divers wanting to go further or deeper but with a fear inside of them that either stop them or made them kind of unsafe for themselves or their buddy. Like in daily life, humans tend to repeat the same pattern. However in doing so, we limit ourselves and keep us away from our dream dive.
I spend my life doing things unconventional. When I started in the film industry, as a woman I didn’t have a lot of role models to become a director of photography. In tech diving at the beginning, it was a bit the same and there is no school to become an explorer. So basically you had to go out there and explore for yourself, finding ways through classical and modern literature, to understand how others did to overcome their limits and achieve great accomplishment. There were a couple of things I didn’t really enjoy and was stopping me from my dreams. As the cold, I don’t really like cold, but I wanted to dive under icebergs and all. So I got to go out of my comfort zone to do it and eventually become an Arctic expedition dive leader. But don’t misunderstand me, a great accomplishment is something personal. It is the dive you will be proud of achieving, no matter how easy or complex it is in the eyes of others.
Here is a some of my tools to push myself, not for the sake of taking risk, but to be able to explore more to discover more and ultimately to be happier in the process and outcome of my expeditions.
1 What is your comfort zone?
The comfort zone is a behavioural space where routine and pattern stress and risk. If this is best to have a routine and pattern so you do perfectly understand your diving equipment, repeat your safety drills. There are some elements that represent a limitation. Those elements that are not a regular basis of safety. One of the best examples is always diving with the same more experience dive buddy. Once you identify your comfort zone, you can act to get out of it.
2 Getting out of your comfort zone, one step at a time … reaching your goal
Slowly, you can take action to get out of your comfort zone in order to expand it. It can be so many things
- Doing a drill, you don’t like shooting lift bag, making the plan of the dive.
- Changing dive buddy, alias not counting on the experience of the more experience one.
You will see that each new action done differently will open your perspective and will lessen your fear or apprehension of the unknown.
Many divers are not at ease when it comes to shark diving. Diving with an expert may teach you how to behave to experiment a relax encounter.
3 What do you dare to do this week, you never tried?
To go further, each week or dive, do something new in order to push your limits, your knowledge. Whatever it is it will, make it so it is new to you and you learn from it. When doing it, see how you feel and how you can adopt that new skills or action to push your limits and becoming comfortable with them and safe.
Ex:
- Assemble your dive buddy equipment and ask her or him to prepare yours. This is something we don’t usually like, but in doing so, we will see differently how you prepare your own equipment and communicate. Try it and let me know how you felt and what you learned.
- What is it you are doing because you’d been taught but don’t fully understand why you are doing it that way? Can you tried differently?
4 What did you learn today to get out of your zone.
Even the best diver has still so much to learn, as technology, equipment evolves.
- Taking solo diver training or any advanced diving training or even equipment
- Did you read every single user manual for your equipment
- Do you know what your computer can do and not do for you? Play with it so you know all menus by heart. You can even make a game with your dive buddy, like who is faster to set it up to your plan.
- Did you do all the upgrades on your equipment
5 Meet and talk to different kinds of divers
This is the time of year where you can meet so many divers and learn from the experience of explorers.
During the dive shows, there are plenty of lectures of all kinds on so many different topics. The exhibitors are there to showcase the new product, so ask them about the upgrade, what’s new.
Next big dive shows in the world
- Oztek. Australia 16-17 march
- Beneath the sea 29-31 march
- Adex. Singapore 11-14 april
I’ll be presenting arctic diving and the Urban water odyssey journey during those shows.
If I like to get out of my comfort zone and explore, there will always be part of my routine or equipment I will not change or modify because I know they are the foundation of safety. When it comes to my computer, no matter if it is a shallow dive or a deep one in a cave, I know I can count on it 100% and the team behind it is doing a job I will not be able to do. So my job is to know how to use it perfectly.
When I did my 44-mile journey in the St Lawrence River (urban water odyssey). It took me 30 hours in the water in 2 days, a team of 24 people, 5 boats due to the geography of the river there with heavy rapids, bridges and intense commercial and recreational boat traffic. None of us was in his or her comfort zone as we were facing challenges that we couldn’t predict. However, as a team we were able to adapt and complete the traverse safely.
About the Author Nathalie Lasselin
Awards winning filmmaker and producer, Nathalie is an avid Arctic, cave and wreck’s explorer. Between teaching tech diving, leading exploration, filming and giving lectures all around the world, she creates projects to empower people in water protection. WDHOF inductee, she went on a 70km unique dive journey to raise awareness for drinking water: Urban Water Odyssey.
