How Skiing Taught Me To Trust Myself

I went home to visit my family over a recent school break, as many college students do. On these visits, I am often flooded with memories of my childhood. Over this most recent break, while skiing with my brother, many of my memories of learning to ski popped into my head. I realized that some of the most fundamental life lessons I had learned came through the vehicle of skiing, and as I shredded my way through a powder day, I felt especially thankful for all the things I had learned by skiing.

Through instructors, coaches, friends, and mostly my father, I have become a pretty decent skier. I was never an athletic kid, but while skiing I learned that I was able to do things that were hard. I learned to take calculated risks, to get back up when I fall, to be aware of my surroundings, to appreciate mother nature while respecting her strength, but most importantly, I learned to trust myself.

As someone who has been skiing almost as long as they could walk, I am a pretty good skier. After years of ski school and ski team, I have most of the technical skills needed to ski just about anything. Yet, I still struggle to keep up with my siblings, and sometimes feel like I have forgotten how to ski. Every time I have trouble getting down a slope, it is not because of the terrain, but a mental block. I become scared that when I fall (it is a when, not an if), I will get hurt, or that I will go too fast and lose control, or that I can’t do it. As someone who has struggled with anxiety for most of their life, it makes a lot of sense that I would worry about these things. Each time I ski it usually takes me a few runs to “remember” how.

While sometimes anxious feelings help keep us out of unnecessarily dangerous situations, this is not one of them. The side of a mountain is a place where I can’t afford to not be able to get down. There is only one way to go home. That is to go down. The most important thing that skiing has taught me is to trust myself.

When I trust myself that I know how to ski, that I have done hard runs before, and that I am capable of maneuvering the terrain in front of me, it becomes ten times easier. The same goes for many things in life. We have to trust our instincts, trust that we will remember information that we study, trust that we will know what to do or say in a given situation. I trust that when I fall, I will be able to get back up, like every other time. As a little kid, my dad would yell to me “speed is your friend!” as he breezed by me, reminding me that I will have an easier time and that I have the ability to go fast and stay in control. On some days, this comes naturally. On others, I have to remind myself over and over to keep turning, to keep going, and that I know what I am doing. I have confidence in my resilience as a skier and as a person, even on those hard days. Skiing has made me stronger in more ways than one, and I feel very grateful to have the ability to see the world from the top of a mountain.