The Fallacy of Deep Water

Navigating career milestones when you're not sure you have the skills to level up

I used to forget how to swim every summer. When the weather finally turned warm enough to uncover the pool in the backyard of my childhood home, I couldn’t wait to jump in. But before I could actually run, tuck my knees into my chest, and cannonball into the water, I’d tell my parents, “I don’t remember how to swim.”

My parents never questioned it, at least not that I can remember. I mean, it’s a reasonable thing to question. How do you go from swimming every day one summer to not remembering how to swim the next?

And yet, that’s what happened, or at least felt like what happened. I was convinced that if I got into the pool, I would flail and sink. That I’d somehow miss out on a whole summer of zipping down the slide, jumping off the diving board, lazily floating on my back and watching the petals from the Magnolia tree sway in the wind and down to the pool. But my Dad would help me put on my arm floaties and patiently “taught” me how to swim again.

I can’t remember how long this I-forgot-how-to-swim period lasted but it came to mind recently when I read this essay written by World Champion mountain biker Kate Courtney. Kate is an incredibly talented and dedicated athlete and she has this ability to interrogate her experiences that is honest in a way that I don’t often see in a lot of other athletes—what’s working, what’s not, what’s standing in her way. It’s no secret that performance-wise, Kate’s struggled and in the essay she talks about coming up against her perceived limits.

She writes about the idea of the “fallacy of deep water,” something that her strength coach told her about.

The idea is that when you wade into the ocean and begin to swim, you start out in shallow water. You can see the bottom and you have no doubt that you will be able to stay afloat. Yet there comes a moment, as you swim farther from shore, that you realize that you are in very deep water. Fear or panic often sets in as you recognize how far you’ve come from shore and start to reckon with the groundlessness below you. In this moment, you can start to doubt your ability to keep yourself afloat. The fallacy of deep water is that, though your mind might tell you otherwise, the task of swimming remains the same and all that really matters is your ability to execute that skill.

Groundless

That’s a fairly accurate way to describe how I’ve felt since May.

There was a whirlwind of activity after my book was published. Events and interviews and articles to write and promote. (So much promotion!) I didn’t want to turn things down because 1) you never know what might come out of an opportunity and 2) I was trying to fit as much in before I left for a family vacation in July.

Plus, as an author, there’s so much (internalized) pressure to keep your book in the ether, to keep up the buzz (or the appearance of buzz), to keep trying to influence sales numbers even though your individual actions aren’t really going to move the needle. But as a Type-A, perfectionist, I had to try because how could I not try?

Photo by Filip Filkovic Philatz on Unsplash

Publishing this book was something that I had worked toward for the last 3 years. It’s occupied every part of my being and forced me to grow as a writer and reporter. I leveled up. Sometimes I read passages from the book and couldn’t believe that I actually wrote it. I cringe when someone tells me I’m a leader in this field.

But in the process of leveling up, it feels like I’ve swum too far out from the shore and I don’t know how to swim anymore. And I’m in that moment when panic sets in. What am I doing here?

With certain career milestones, like publishing a book, comes more and different expectations—that I’m a certain kind of writer now, that I’ll write another book, that I’ll launch a speaking career, that I’ll actually figure out what the heck my career actually is. Because it’s weird to be a journalist with a book out in the world. I’ve reported on, researched, and synthesized a lot of information but ultimately, it’s not my research. I’m not the scientist running the studies. I’m also not a coach, sports science practitioner, sports dietitian, or athlete. It’s made me somewhat hesitant to use my voice, especially in a world where it feels like everyone positions themselves as an expert and are trying to sell you something, which I’m not. (OK, I do want you to buy my book.¹)

I think that’s why, by the time summer vacation rolled around, I felt drift. I’ve struggled a lot with what’s next career-wise because to me, it feels like I don’t have the skills to really level up. Writers are creatives. They’re thinkers and disrupters in some cases. They’re fountains of ideas. There are so many others who are so much better at writing and reporting and spinning stories than me. Who are truly experts in their field. Who had so much more to contribute the conversation than I do. (I know. I know! Imposter syndrome is the problem and that’s me.)

I absolutely loved this swimsuit. The haircut? Not so much.

When my Dad taught me how to swim at the beginning of every summer, it wasn’t so much about teaching me the actual skills to swim. It was more about easing me back into the pool. Helping me regain my confidence in the water all while knowing that he was standing by my side. Reminding me that what at first feels unfamiliar really isn’t. Helping me believe in myself again. Eventually, the floaties came off and I would cannonball in to the pool and try to make the biggest splash possible.

I guess that’s kind of where I am right now: Easing myself back into writing and rebuilding my confidence as a writer.

And I hope that this newsletter can be one “pool” for me to play in, where I can flex my skills regularly (because let’s be honest, journalism kind of stinks right now), challenge myself, and find my voice again.

Thanks for being here. More soon.

Christine

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