22/05/2025
I haven’t been a swim dad long enough to verify all of the following… but it seems true so far! That said, I’ll make sure to share videos and pics from this weekend’s meet!
I went to a really good high school, graduated from a great college, and then I got my masters degree.
I would say that I’m pretty well educated.
After spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on my education, here is what I have ultimately learned.
Everything I really need to succeed in life, all the lessons, my real education…I didn’t get those things in school.
I got them in the pool.
If you really want to be prepared for adulthood, get yourself on a swim team.
That’s where you will learn the following thirteen lessons that are crucial to surviving the real world:
🏊♀️1. Pay attention to detail.
The more efficient your stroke is, the less tired you are while you swim, the more endurance you have, and the faster you go.
Sure, you could thrash your way through the water. You will make it to the other side. Eventually.
But you won’t last long very long, and you won’t log too many laps under your belt that way.
Shortcuts will always catch up with you.
It’s all about technique.
No matter what you are doing.
🏊♀️ 2. Practice makes permanent. 🏊♀️
The way you practice something is the way you will do it when it really counts.
Practice doing things the best way you can.
Practice doesn’t make perfect.
And perfection is not realistic. You will almost never achieve perfection.
But if you are aiming for perfection, perfect practice makes perfect.
🏊♀️ 3. Change is inevitable. And it’s good. 🏊♀️
In the twenties, the world record holder swam freestyle with his head out of the water.
He swam a 100 freestyle in 58 seconds.
The world record now is 47 seconds.
You can continue to do things they way they have always been done.
But chances are, you won’t be able to keep up.
🏊♀️ 4. Complaining is cancerous. 🏊♀️
Swim in a lane of people complaining about every set you do at practice, and you will find yourself soon doing the same thing.
And wanting to get the heck out of the pool
Practice is hard enough as it is.
Going through it with a bunch of miserable people doesn’t make it any easier.
Surround yourself with people you'd want to train in a lane with.
🏊♀️5. Dating a teammate is stupid. 🏊♀️
When it doesn’t work out, you are still stuck with them every day.
It’s no different with a coworker.
0/10. Do not recommend.
🏊♀️ 6. There is no easy button. 🏊♀️
Garbage in = garbage out.
Screw around in practice and you will find out at a meet.
There is no substitution for hard work.
And hard work sucks sometimes.
Okay, most of the time.
It hurts. It's uncomfortable. It might make you sick. It might make you puke.
But it won’t kill you. It will make you stronger.
And it will show you what you are made of and what you are capable of.
🏊♀️ 7. Recovery is vital. 🏊♀️
Ask any swimmer what the Most Wonderful Time of the Year is.
They will tell you taper time.
There is a time for hard work. And there is a time for rest. Recovery.
You cannot go at 110% forever.
In order for your body (and brain) to perform at their best, they need rest.
🏊♀️ 8. You don’t need to be the best to be the leader. 🏊♀️
Attitude and work ethic are just as influential as a gold medal or a team record.
More influential, actually.
People want to be around the person who is positive, dependable, and a team player, not simply the person who is winning.
Especially if the person winning is a diva or a self centered jerk.
🏊♀️ 9. You are your own biggest coach. 🏊♀️
There aren’t many sports where you spend the majority of the time with your head submerged in the water.
You are alone with your thoughts.
You can talk yourself into or out of anything.
Learn how to talk to yourself.
It will take you far.
🏊♀️ 10. Teamwork 🏊♀️
Your teammates depend on you.
It may be as a part of a relay.
It may be for the points you score as an individual toward the team total.
It may be for the enthusiasm and hard work you bring to the pool.
There are countless ways you make a contribution to a team, and they are all important.
🏊♀️ 11. Perseverance. 🏊♀️
No matter how hard you work, you are going to mess up and fail.
You'll choke. You'll get DQ'd. You'll have a horrible swim. You'll disappoint your team.
Successful people do not throw in the towel when this happens.
They use these situations as opportunities for self reflection and growth, and they get back on the horse when they fall off and use what they learned to do better next time.
🏊♀️ 12. There will be more bad times than good. 🏊♀️
You will train for months and years for a race that will last minutes or seconds.
You'll have lots of bad swims, and most of your swims will not be best times.
Bad swims and failures don't mean YOU are a failure.
They are just guideposts helping you figure out what works.
And the feeling you have when you get that cut, or win that meet or swim that best time is totally worth all the blood, sweat, and tears (and there will be all three of those things).
There is no drink or pill or drug that can surpass that high.
Nothing surpasses hard work.
🏊♀️ 13. It’s not about the destination. It’s about the journey.
Winning is awesome.
Seeing your name on a record board doesn’t suck.
But that will only happen for a very very very small percentage of people.
Statistically speaking, you won't often (or ever) be a champion.
But you will make friends and make mistakes, experience happiness and sadness, overcome some obstacles and stumble on others, hurt feelings and have your feelings hurt, you will be supported and stabbed in the back, you will laugh, cry, offend, defend, bleed, puke, p**p and p*e your way through swim season with boys and girls, men and women, who are fatter, skinnier, prettier, uglier, taller, shorter, faster, slower, meaner, nicer, smarter, dumber, richer and poorer than you.
That sounds pretty much like the real world to me (with the added challenge of doing it all half naked), and I can't think of a better arena to prepare yourself for the real world.
