Earlier this week, I had a lovely chat with a coworker. One of the things we talked about was how often we have to trick ourselves just to get started. Our own small self con—little bargains they make to sneak past the fear of beginning.
To convince ourselves that the thing we know is good for us — but for some reason don’t want to do right now — is still worth doing.
The stories, self-talk, and small negotiations we whisper as we creep closer to the edge of the diving board. Every fiber of your being telling you to turn around. Telling you not today. Maybe later.
I don’t think many pools have diving boards anymore. As a kid, I remember one from one of the community pools. Nothing Olympic, just a small springy plank above chlorinated blue. I remember being both equally terrified and curious. Well, maybe more terrified than curious. Staring at it. Eventually, standing there (or near it), trying to talk myself into doing it.
That’s the same feelings now. That’s the feeling that shows up when I need to do something I’d rather not. Or something I do want, but can’t quite face yet.
Scale
And these things aren’t big. They’re rarely big.
It’s sending the follow-up Slack message that’s been sitting in your drafts for hours.
It’s tidying up your desk — taking care of the little piles of stationery, trinkets turned fidget toys, and Amazon packaging that somehow built a small village of their own over the last few weeks.
It’s taking two minutes to pause and write down what you just did — so future you (the one who’s probably tired, distracted, or caffeinated into another dimension) remembers what mattered.
These aren’t big leaps. They’re small ones. Tiny daily dives into discomfort. Yet somehow, we self-talk ourselves into believing the make-believe "bigness" of it all.
Because once fear gets involved, scale stops being logical. A small step can feel like skydiving. That’s why we invent rituals to outwit ourselves.
Practice
We don’t fight fear; we negotiate with it.
“I’ll just look at the board. I’ll just climb halfway. I’ll just check the water.”
Each micro-agreement edges us closer to motion. A series of quiet yeses that lead you past the edge.
Each dive a quiet rep for the next board you’ll inevitably stand in front of. Because courage is a muscle. And hesitation is the gym.
Because it’s never just about the leap. It’s about practicing the part before it — the moment you decide to climb, the moment you feel everything in you want to turn away, and still move forward anyway.
Diving boards never stops being scary.
Even for the pros — even literal Olympic divers — the trembling never fully goes away. Some heights still make them pause and question everything:
You just get (a bit) better at stepping up and jumping off.