Why Starting Again Can Be So Hard?

Over a decade ago, I skydived in the South of France for the first time. Strapped to my instructor, I jumped (or more precisely, I froze and then was thrown) out of the plane and discovered a brand new world.

We landed a few minutes later, and I could barely realise what had just happened. My brain, completely overflown with adrenaline, was struggling to comprehend all the things that just unravelled in a fraction of time.

But even if my thoughts were a mess, I knew one thing for certain: I loved it and wanted more!

To skydive more, I went on a lengthy course, learning the theory, practising, rehearsing on the ground, and training again and again. At that time, I could barely jump because conditions had to be almost perfect for the instructors to allow me to go on the plane.

Some days, I would come to the drop zone, expecting to jump with instructors, but nothing happened. I would wait the whole day, watching all the experienced skydivers going up and down multiple times, while I was waiting on the bench for the “right” conditions (low wind, good visibility, and so forth).

That was so frustrating!

But I pulled through, got my licence and could finally jump by myself, even with a bit of wind. Hooray!

I did 27 jumps and was planning for more, but I got the opportunity to work in Asia and postponed skydiving.

And it turned out to be a rather long break.

I expatriated to China and then moved to Australia, progressing my career to launching and growing my practice on high performance, coaching and training.

Several times, I thought, “wouldn’t it be great to jump again?”. But as time passed, my licence expired. This meant that I had to start all over again. Pay a hefty training fee and wait hours on the ground.

That was “too tedious” to go through again. Maybe I was “too old” by now. And surely “too busy” to get the time to get the certification again.