Hello again beautiful people! It's that time of the week again where I round up how my third week as a DMT has been. As a major starting point I can say that I'm now having consistent better days. By this I mean that things aren't entirely perfect yet, and we still have a lot of polishing to do in terms of my briefings, my skills and a whole lot of work to do on my sense of direction. The thought of guiding a dive in the near future is quite frankly terrifying me. Then again, two weeks ago I never thought I would have the confidence to sit in front of a group of divers and deliver a briefing, I now do it quite a few times a week and I'm also now able to give briefings, debriefings and guide snorkelling trips. I suppose that's what this week's blog post will be about - Confidence.
Now before I begin I would just like to point out that what I say in the next few paragraphs isn't a sob story or a pity party, it's just some background to my life so you can understand how I've reached this point in my life. After a conversation with my brother this morning he made a very interesting point of saying how much I've grown as a person in such a short space of time. Let's rewind here, back around 12 years. I went through all of my primary school life and a little bit into my secondary life coping with being bullied. Every. damn. day. Because I was "the fat kid" because I was clumsy, because I was odd, I was different. That destroyed any self-esteem I had well into my late teens. I can remember clearly my mother sending me to a self-esteem help "club" for children when I was about 8 or 9, just to try and help me get my confidence back and over time and little by little I suppose I did. I certainly developed a front of confidence so that I could protect myself should any other bully come along I was lucky that they didn't and I have the most amazing friends and family in the world.
I digress, back to the comment my brother made - that in 4 years I've gone from being this girl who would rarely leave the house, who was very sheltered and struggled to be away from her family for too long. University came along and I had to adapt and I did to an extent, I still suffered terribly with anxiety and depression but I worked through it. I look at where I am now compared to 4 years ago and I'm genuinely amazed. I never dreamed I would travel 2,000 miles by myself, let alone be working in a foreign country. But I'm here and I'm doing it and just that in it's own right makes me immensely proud of myself and I'm not afraid to admit that.
I never believed in my life that I would be able (to some extent) handle some of the logistics of the dive operation, such as making up the boxes, weight belts, making sure there's enough tanks loaded. Being able to talk to customers so freely and so confidently and actually feel this damn good about myself and what I'm doing. I got so used to asking people "Did I get it? Was I right?" and they would always respond with "ah kinda, you're close but not quite." At this point in life I have people telling me that I'm doing a good job, that I'm improving by the minute. Yes, okay, I'm not perfect but I have never felt this validated in my life. An I know that the only way is up from here.
I guess I have my team to thank for all of this; To Colin for being the best mentor anybody could ask for, for constantly pushing me to be the best I can be, we may have a lot left to do but we're going to smash this together! To Dave for being the gaffer, the boss of the base and for always being around to offer a hug, some kind words and for knowing how to cheer me up (usually there's chocolate involved.) To Sam, for well just being Sam, you sir have a wicked sense of humour and you inspire me everyday with your sheer ambition to succeed.
And last but not least to the lovely Ryan, thank you for teaching me everything you know about casting out the anchor, even though I can never get it exactly right, so you're amazing for putting up with a clutz like me.
And now none of you can say I don't mention you in my blogs. ;)
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