Category: Mind set

‘I’m just so in love with learning at the moment!’ I excitedly shouted at my friend Matt as I paddled back into the eddy at Stanley Embankment. It was my first time paddling at this beloved tidal wave and I was having the time of my life! I had just tried to spin, caught an edge and dramatically got thrown upside down. As I rolled up on the messy eddy line, I was already thinking about my next surf. I knew what I had done wrong and was eager to try it again with a small change to see if it would make it better.

Something has shifted for me over the last six months. I’ve found myself in one of the most positive headspaces I’ve ever had for kayaking: playful, experimental, and genuinely comfortable with trying and failing. That mindset has quietly been transforming my paddling. I think I’ve made more progress in these last few months than I have in the last few years.

This article is a personal reflection on why that’s happening. It is about how embracing learning and small failures has reignited my confidence and accelerated my progression. I hope that, wherever you are in your own kayaking journey, some part of this resonates.

I was on a long drive coming back from a kayaking trip recently, chatting away with the friend I was sharing the journey with. At some point, I threw out the conversation starter: “What have been the happiest times of your life, and why?”

When I tried to answer it myself, I realised something – right now might genuinely be the happiest I’ve ever been. That thought stayed with me for the rest of the journey. Why this moment? Why this version of my life?

As a outwardly bubbly person, people often ask me what my ‘secret’ is to being happy and the truth is… I have seven of them! They are things that make both my life and my time on the river feel joyful and meaningful. Pillars if you like, that I try to lead my life by and approach my kayaking with.

So here they are – my 7 secrets to being happy as a white water kayaker, and maybe even a happier human too.

You scout the rapid, you get back in your kayak and wait to be signalled down. You look up and get mesmerised by how beautiful the leaves of the tree above you look in the autumn light. Suddenly a whistle blows and you are brought back into reality. It is time for you to leave the eddy, but you cannot remember the line you just scouted. Feelings of embarrassment and frustration well up. You don’t know whether you should you admit you’ve already forgotten the line or just go down the rapid and hope for the best. Does this scene sound familiar?

October is ADHD Awareness Month. Like many adventure sports, white water kayaking attracts a high number of people who are neurodivergent. Whether they are diagnosed or not, paddlers who show traits of ADHD may struggle with attention, impulsivity, managing emotions and more whilst out paddling.

‘I can’t do this.’ ‘I’m bad at kayaking.’ ‘I’m never going to learn.’ Sound familiar? If so, this article is for you!

When learning a new skill, progress starts strong, but sooner or later, improvement slows, and frustration sets in. That’s when mindset makes all the difference. Over the years, I’ve become fascinated with how a fear of failure, often linked to a fixed mindset, holds people back in kayaking. In this article, I explore how shifting to a growth mindset can help break these barriers.

Have you ever noticed that it is often seen that the ‘experts’ in a sport that have far more self doubts that the ‘beginners’? I have developed as a kayaker hugely since I first sat in a kayak 10 years ago. Yet the better I got at kayaking, the more self conscious I became about it. I have really struggled with feelings of imposter syndrome over the last few years and in the last few weeks especially I have been considering this topic more deeply.

This article, like many of my blog articles, has been a way to help me process my thoughts and feelings on the matter. If reading this helps you to process your own feelings – even better! A little warning that this article is very personal and really quite long! If you want to skip to my ‘top tips for dealing with imposter syndrome’ section I really won’t be offended. You can do so by clicking this link.

Anxiety is the theme for this year’s World Mental Health Week, which ends today. As soon as I saw that word, anxiety, I knew that I wanted to write a blog article about anxiety and kayaking. Kayaking on white water is always going to involve some feeling of nervousness. You are under pressure to execute your skills with the knowledge that if you do not, there is the potential for unpleasant consequences. Being anxious is a very understandable response to paddling on white water.

However it is also a sport which can lead to high levels of anxiety at times where it is not always understandable. I am talking about anxiety that seems to come out of the blue and yet has the ability to completely paralyse you. For me, this is the anxiety that appears in situations that in theory you should be completely comfortable in. Local rivers you have run dozens of times before, play spots which you know are safe to practice in, rapids which you could run backwards with your eyes closed and still be fine. It’s the anxiety that no one wants to talk about because it just doesn’t make sense. In this article, I am going to talk about it. I will mainly be talking from my own experiences.

Today I took a playboat down my local white water course, HPP, and enjoyed every minute of it. That may not sound like much but it is a huge deal to me. A year ago, for a combination of reasons, I completely lost my confidence. Specifically my confidence whilst paddling a playboat at HPP. It has taken me a year to find that confidence again.

I wanted to share my experience through this blog. Perhaps this article will help someone else who is feeling the same. I hope at the very least that if future me ever gets myself into this situation again – reading this article will help me!

We all know that if you make a mistake, the best thing to do is own up and apologise for it. Hit your friend in the head with your paddle as you drop into the eddy? Say sorry. Bash into the side of them as you cross an eddy line with a little too much enthusiasm? Say sorry. But what happens when the mistakes you are apologising for are only visible to you? What happens when the only standard you are willing to accept is perfection? Should you continue to say sorry for not being, as seen through your own eyes, ‘good enough’?

It has taken me a long time to realise that I am a perfectionist and an even longer time to admit it. I have found that this personality trait has had a real impact on my paddling, both positive and negative. Learning to cope with my perfectionism is still very much an ongoing process for me but I wanted to share some of my thoughts on here. Ironically this article isn’t perfect and I don’t have all the answers. But maybe it may help someone who is reading this. Equally, anyone reading who has more ideas than me, please do get in touch!