Here’s a little secret: I’m terrible at swimming.

As a kid, I took swimming lessons up to AquaQuest 3 (which seems to be equivalent to Red Cross 1), but I stopped because I was never comfortable with my face underwater, unless I held my nose with one hand. I was just quite scared of getting water in my nose and quite convinced that it would happen as soon as my face entered the water unshielded.

Obviously, this held me back from improving at swimming, except for treading water, which I got quite skilled at (albeit with my own peculiar technique, which I would now characterize as a lazy frog/whip kick in an upright position). I wished I could do something about it, but truly believed that I couldn’t. I didn’t feel so great about it and I remember feeling a mix of shame and jealousy whenever I was reminded that nearly everybody else could handle it just fine–even literal babies). Whenever I went swimming after that, I would just wear a diving mask rather than goggles and I did my best to forget about it.

This year, a confluence of several factors led me to register for swimming lessons:

• I wanted to face my fears. There’s something empowering about conquering a fear—it enhances a sense of autonomy and personal agency, which is a big contributor to my life satisfaction. It probably didn’t hurt that my main friend group in town was full of people who openly talked about Comfort Zone Expansion and modifying their own thought patterns, so I had plenty of inspiration.

• I had the time, since I was in grad school. This is not to say that I had no time during my undergrad, but it was certainly more chaotic in terms of when I went to sleep and woke up each day and how much free time I had versus studying and homework and job application time. I seem to find it tough to muster willpower and commitment when I don’t have a stable schedule.

• I wanted to be more fit. Swimming is a great workout, and also has a relatively low risk of injury or death compared to other sports, provided that you’re in a controlled environment with a trained lifeguard. I hadn’t found that many types of physical activity that I enjoyed doing, so I wanted to unlock swimming as a form of fitness and give it a try.

• The longer I waited, the harder it would be. I was 23 years old at the time. 23 is not especially old, but it is approaching the end of one’s physical prime. My grandfather grew up on the prairies, and didn’t try learning to swim until he was an adult. He put in a lot of effort, but wasn’t able to learn the front crawl. I don’t think that it’s impossible to learn new physical skills when you’re older, but it’s safe to assume that it’s harder.

With all of the above in mind, it was a rare coincidence of interest and opportunity. After thinking about it a bit, I signed up for some lessons at the university.

From the very first day, I was forced to directly confront my fear—practically the first thing we were asked to do was floating on our stomachs with our faces down.

Experience has taught me that if I give my brain a chance, it can take little fears and anxieties and blow them out of proportion. So on this occasion, I didn’t think about it too much, and just focused on carrying out the action. I gave it a try, and quickly learned that many typical swimming positions, not that much water gets in your nose—exhaling or not.

Many well-meaning people had tried to explain this to me (and gotten themselves into rather circular discussions), but it was this experience that helped me break through my fear. I could finally start learning front crawl and breaststroke, which are two of the most important swimming strokes in terms of speed and efficiency. I could also swim at much higher speed generally, since holding my nose or holding my face above water had been creating a lot of drag.

Over the course of the lessons, I started to figure out how to do the front crawl and a few other strokes. There were further instances where that fear resurfaced, but with each recurrence, it became less and less of an issue.

It’s been really enjoyable to start improving after years of stagnation. And swimming has become enjoyable for its own sake. I keep daydreaming about increasing my speed and endurance, and I even tuned in to some of the swimming events from the Rio Olympics.

Overall, I’m really happy with the outcome of this little project, and I’ve signed up for more lessons this Fall. I’m still terrible at swimming, but I’ve laid a solid foundation for improvement.