Cliff diving is like one of those things that, much as I would like the experience , I’m not prepared to jump of a perfectly good cliff, to see if I can cheat death on the way down and maybe land up injured or dead at the bottom, but then again I know the feeling that they get. I use to jump off cliffs with my hang glider and soar through the sky with the wind in my face.

Why did I do this? Well firstly, I was much younger and acted on impulse, before I thought about what might happen to me and I nearly crashed on one or two occasions, but there was a rush to it also where I felt alive and put my fears on the back burner, that is why I can understand these young guys in Mexico who like to do cliff diving and even make it their career choice for a while. The part that I really liked about watching these cliff divers was the apparent ease with which they are able to cheat death each time by inches.

The part that I didn’t seen was that they had probably practiced this hundreds of times starting out from small cliffs and working their way up to the point that they could jump off a big cliff, while doing a somersault and landing in a small pool of water. This was both awe-inspiring and amazing to me that they could do this over and over again with the same accuracy and commitment.

This is like most things in life, you have a great idea and then the next thought is, why take the leap of faith? It’s the commitment that is required to do it, because it’s quite comfortable where I am (even if it’s not). The problem with this philosophy is that after a while, the quite comfortable, becomes quite boring and then becomes quite a rut and once a person is in a rut it takes a lot of effort to climb out of the rut.

Now for most of us, jumping off a cliff might not be the place we want to start out, but taking an idea and then applying little steps to reach our goals will firstly get us out of the rut, one bit at a time and will expand your comfort zone and give you a similar rush as a person jumping off a cliff. Taking bigger steps, the rush will become more intense and will require a higher degree of faith and commitment. If you jump and you are focused on the rocks and not the pool your chances of hitting what you are focused on are much greater, i.e., the rocks. So staying focused on the destination is always a good idea and greatly removes the fear of the rocks.

You might at this point be saying that it’s not the same, taking that next step in your idea or diving from a cliff, but it is. They both require a desire to do something, they both start out with small steps, they both have a learning curve to get there and when you are accomplished them they both seem easy and they both have the same chance of becoming comfortable and needing a new desire or goal, so that you don’t land up back in the comfort rut.