In this episode of Diary of a Dreamer from the Mastering Resilience series, I share the story of how I went from being the worst swimmer on my team—receiving the dreaded “pity clap”—to becoming the MVP my senior year. That experience taught me a powerful lesson: tether yourself to the process, not the outcome. By staying committed and focusing on the journey rather than the rewards, I transformed my mindset and my performance. Tune in to hear how embracing discipline and the right mindset can lead to remarkable change.
Read the Transcript
00:00 Tasha: Welcome to Diary of a Dreamer, where resilience unlocks your potential. I’m Tasha Eizinger, and each week I’ll bring you powerful stories and practical insights from my own experiences and inspiring guests. Whether you’re facing challenges or chasing dreams, this podcast is your go-to for motivation, building confidence, and practical tips for transforming obstacles into opportunities. Let’s dive into today’s episode and start turning your dreams into reality.
00:34 Tasha: So far in this series, what we have talked about is your mindset, your attitude and your perspective. What you choose to focus on, you will see more of it, and you can live your dreams one step at a time. If you haven’t been following along, that’s okay. You can obviously go back and listen. The recap is that I had some serious health issues.
00:57 Tasha: When I was 26, we didn’t know why, and I learned so many lessons along the way that helped me through that incredibly difficult time period of my life, and that have continued to serve me now into my 40s. What a blessing it is to be in my 40s, by the way. I love it. I was so excited to turn 40, and I’m getting ready to turn 41, and it’s just, actually by the time this episode airs, I will be 41. So yes, we can control our mindset, which is our attitude and our perspective. Sometimes we still fall. Along the way, here’s what I can tell you.
01:31 Tasha: For sure, it’s not always going to be easy or pretty when you’re trying to go for your goals and dreams or simply even get through the day, but you can get to where you want to go if you are disciplined long enough. Here’s how I know. When I first started competitive swimming, I was eight years old. I was the worst swimmer on the team.
01:51 Tasha: I was so bad that even a four-year-old could hold their breath underwater longer than me, could swim faster than me. It was so demoralizing to be like, I’m a second grader, and this person who’s really not even in school yet is so much faster than me. And I truly was the worst swimmer on the team. I would always swim the exhibition races, which means they still let you swim just so you are in the meet.
02:19 Tasha: But even if I had earned any points, they wouldn’t have counted, which I wasn’t fast enough to earn any points. But I always got something called performance. Pity clap. Now, we’ve all heard the victory clap where everybody’s excited because maybe somebody scored a goal or got their time or whatever. But then there’s the pity clap. It’s awful. And it basically is, we’re glad that you finished. You made it. And we’re trying to be encouraging. It did not feel encouraging at all. It was pretty embarrassing. As I got older, because this continued on. And I don’t know why. I stayed on the swim team.
03:01 Tasha: It makes zero sense because at swim practices, I couldn’t swim fast enough to get warm. I was always cold. I would get headaches because I would get so cold. And I’d get the pity clap. And I even went up to my coach one time because I was getting old enough to realize I was always swimming exhibition. And I asked my coach, I said, hey, coach, when am I going to swim so that I’m not exhibition anymore? And I can actually earn points. Points for the team. And she said, we all have to take our turn swimming exhibition. When I walked away, I was like, but I take my turn more than anybody else on the team.
03:39 Tasha: Probably more than everybody else combined on the team. I would like to say that there was some beautiful moment where it all clicked and I got magically better. But it wasn’t. It was because of a jacket. It was a swim jacket. And it had our team name on it. And it was a nice coat. And I thought that thing is cool.
04:05 Tasha: And our swim coach said that anybody in this group that finishes all of the practices for five days in a row will get this jacket. And I thought, wait a minute, that’s something controllable because it’s not about being fastest. If it was something about the fastest people or getting one of the fastest times, I wouldn’t have been able to do it. But I thought this is something I could do. So I. First night, swam the whole practice for the first time ever, and I was so proud of myself. I got in my dad’s truck and I said, hey, dad, I did the whole practice tonight.
04:37 Tasha: He said, OK, now I was expecting him to just be so proud of me and so impressed, and he wasn’t at all. He said, OK, what are you going to do tomorrow? I thought, OK, challenge accepted. So the next night, same thing. So we’re on to Tuesday. Did the whole practice. He didn’t do the whole practice tonight. Said, OK.
05:02 Tasha: What are you going to do tomorrow? Same thing Wednesday night. By Thursday, I was like, I’m not even going to tell him. Friday, I had to get out to go to the bathroom. I had to go to the bathroom so bad. So I missed a couple of things. Looking back, I’m like, I should have just gone in the pool. That’s what I should have done because I was so close, but I didn’t want to go pee in the pool. So I got out and went to the bathroom. I don’t know. I didn’t get the jacket, but I learned one of the most valuable lessons.
05:37 Tasha: And my dad eventually got to the point that I’m sure he was tired of me saying I finished the whole practice. And he said, that’s good that you finished the whole practice. But I didn’t become the wrestler. I did because I worked really hard. One practice I did it every single practice. Every single day I worked hard and then I got better. That’s been one of the most valuable lessons I’ve ever learned. And there’s actually a couple of books written about that. The Compound Effect by Darren Hardy, The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson, that it’s our daily choices, obviously, Atomic Habits. That would be another one. I kept swimming all the practices and I got better as hard work produces positive results typically.
06:23 Tasha: So I kept getting better. And as a swimmer who had no natural talent, who worked really hard, I feel very honored that my senior year I was recognized as the MVP on our high school team. And it wasn’t because I had the most points. It was because of my hard work and effort. And I wasn’t a perfect team captain or anything by all means. But I did encourage the other girls a lot and wanted to see everybody succeed, not just myself. And so.
07:03 Tasha: because of all that it represented to me. There’s a quote that says, hard work beats talent when talent fails to work hard. I believe in that. I’ve seen it in so many areas of my life that maybe I’m not naturally gifted in it, but if I keep learning and growing and doing my best, I inevitably get better. Our world is designed for instant gratification, which is really hard. It’s not really our kids’ fault per se that they want to listen to a song. You can just pull it up on your favorite streaming. They want to watch a certain show. You can just pull it up. They don’t even have to have commercials. We don’t even need remotes. Do you remember creating tapes and listening to the radio and trying to record it at just the right moment? All of these things that we used to experience, they don’t experience it. And then we all see this stuff on social media and it just looks like life can be sunshine and rainbows for people or that things just happen easily for people. And that’s not really the case for most people who have had success. There are those unicorns that maybe they’ve figured it all out very quickly and life is simple for them.
08:16 Tasha: But for most of us, we have to take the time to be disciplined long enough to actually produce positive results. And we get through that because discipline can be a hard thing. I’m not perfectly disciplined. There’s been time periods in my life where I have been pretty perfectly disciplined, but they’re time periods. It’s not sustainable long-term for most people. I like to focus on small wins, the little wins that show you that you’re making progress and celebrating those little small wins.
08:49 Tasha: To keep you going. That’s how you get, I think it’s the dopamine to feel better about staying the course. Rewarding yourself and making it fun along the way is really important to keep going. So I hope that as you’re going about your day, you can focus on the small wins and remember to tether yourself to the process, not the outcome. You can’t control the results. All you can control is the choices that you make, the habits that you have, your mindset and doing your best every day. But I know for sure your life can get better.
09:28 Tasha: Thank you for tuning into this episode of Diary of a Dreamer. I hope you found the stories and tips shared today to be a source of motivation and strength. Remember, every challenge you face is a chance to grow and move closer to your dreams. Don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review and share this podcast with anyone who could use a boost of encouragement. And I’ll see you in the next episode.